Bouchard, Shapovalov advance at Wimbledon

Vancouver’s Pospisil loses his first-round men’s match

LONDON• Eugenie Bouchard and Denis Shapovalov are off to the second round at Wimbledon.

The Canadians both won firstround matches on Tuesday and will join fellow Canuck Milos Raonic in the second round.

Bouchard beat British wild card Gabriella Taylor 6-0, 4-6, 6-3 in a first-round women’s match, while Shapovalov, the No. 26 seed in the men’s draw, knocked off Jeremy Chardy of France 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-4.

A finalist at Wimbledon in 2014, Bouchard is now ranked 188th after winning three qualifying matches last week.

“I feel a lot more comfortable on the court,” Bouchard told reporters after the match. “I feel a little bit more like myself. You know, I have always deep down had the belief, and it’s about, in the tough moments of the match, keeping that belief. I have that more and more now. Just trying to keep progressing.”

Shapovalov, meanwhile, beat one of the hottest players on the ATP Tour in the 46th-ranked Chardy. In his last three tournaments, Chardy won one title, reached a final and advanced to the semifinals.

Bouchard, now working with longtime tennis coach Robert Lansdorp, will face No. 17 seed Ashleigh Barty in the second round. Barty beat Bouchard in their only previous match, winning a three-setter on a hard-court in Miami last year.

Shapovalov will face unseeded Benoit Paire of France in the second round. Shapovalov won their lone previous match, on clay earlier this year in Madrid.

Meanwhile, Vasek Pospisil of Vancouver lost 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan in a first-round men’s match on Tuesday. Pospisil has lost his past five first-round matches at Grand Slams.

Also on Wednesday, Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and partner Yifan Xu of China, the sixth seeds in the women’s doubles draw, open their tournament against American Alison Riske and Olga Savchuk of Ukraine.