Canada’s Bouchard bounced from Australian Open
MELBOURNE (CP) — Three of Canada’s top tennis stars have now been eliminated from the Australian Open tournament.
The latest was unseeded Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., who fell to top-seeded Simona Halep of Romania 6-2, 6-2 in their second-round match in Melbourne on Thursday.
Halep’s gained some revenge from the last — and only — time the pair met in a Grand Slam tournament. At Wimbledon in 2014, Bouchard defeated Halep in the semifinals before advancing to the final, where she lost to Petra Kvitova.
On Tuesday, 22nd seed Milos Raonic was stunned by unseeded Lukas Lacko of Slovakia in four sets in the opening round.
The Thornhill, Ont., resident, who is coming off an injury-filled season, had reached at least the quarterfinals in Melbourne Park the last three years.
Denis Shapovalov is also leaving Melbourne empty-handed. He lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round on Wednesday.
In other results from Thursday, 2014 champ Stan Wawrinka made his earliest exit in a decade — losing 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 in the second round to No. 97-ranked Tennys Sandgren.
No. 9 Wawrinka was one of three seeded players to fall in the men’s draw.
Wimbledon champion and No. 3-ranked Garbine Muguruza was one of five seeded players to lose in the women’s side on Day 4.
Six-time champ Novak Djokovic survived in a four-set win over an ailing Gael Monfils that extended his record to 15-0 in their career head-to-heads.
Djokovic is playing his first tournament since Wimbledon, and has remodeled his serve to take some load of his injured right elbow.
Muguruza suffered a 7-6 (1), 6-4 loss to No. 88-ranked Hsieh Su-wei, who has been No. 1 in doubles but had a career-high ranking of 23rd in singles.
That left only Maria Sharapova, Aneglique Kerber and French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko as Grand Slam winners in the women’s draw. Sharapova and Kerber are slated to meet in the third round.