‘No pressure’ for Bouchard versus Halep
Melbourne is expected to turn up the heat Thursday, with temperatures forecast to reach 39 C.
The weather might have cooled off before the opening-night match on Margaret Court Arena between top-seeded Simona Halep of Romania and former No. 5 Eugenie Bouchard.
The Canadian has fallen on hard times recently, with her ranking dropping to 112. The two haven’t played since 2014, when Bouchard’s only victory in three matches against Halep that year came in the semifinals at Wimbledon. Bouchard was playing the best tennis of her career that year, reaching the semifinals at the Australian Open and French Open, and losing the Wimbledon final to Petra Kvitova.
Times have changed, and Bouchard likes her underdog status.
“It’s always really cool to go up against the best in the world,” she said. “You use it as a measuring stick to see how far off you are. I want to try to play my game and go out there and do some damage ... it’s fun to have no pressure.”
Meanwhile, Marta Kostyuk, 15, is the youngest player to reach the third round at the Australian Open since Martina Hingis made the quarters at 15 in 1996.
Asked what she will do with the more than $140,000 she has already earned, she said: “Maybe I will get presents for my family ... and then for myself a bit.”
On Wednesday, Denis Shapovalov, the 18-year-old Canadian, led 5-2 in the fifth set before losing his second-round match 3-6, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5 to 32-year-old Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Tsonga casually hit a between-the-legs shot that kept him in a winning point and generally provided the Margaret Court Arena crowd with three hours, 37 minutes of premium entertainment.
“There’s always nerves in a tennis match,” Shapovalov said. “I wasn’t thinking about it much. Just didn’t play a good game on my serve. Then he picked up his level. I’m just going to learn from it and keep going.”