Czech lefty brushes away Bouchard in straight sets
But Canadian says she will ‘take a lot of positives’ from her play at U.S. Open
NEW YORK Eugenie Bouchard was blunt when assessing her inconsistent performance in her secondround loss at the U.S. Open on Thursday.
After rolling through three qualifying matches and posting an easy win in the first round, the native of Westmount, Que., lost 6-4, 6-3 to Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic in the second round.
While Bouchard has earned some praise for a recent improvement in her results after tumbling down the rankings in previous years, the world’s 137th-ranked player struggled against the 103rdranked Vondrousova.
“Yeah, on the court, I really didn’t feel like myself,” Bouchard said. “That’s very disappointing, considering how good I felt in my last couple matches. Yeah, I mean, I played like (expletive).”
“I think I’ll have to take a lot of positives from the past couple weeks,” she added. “Although I’m very disappointed with today, I’ve been playing matches, and that’s what I feel like I need.”
The Czech player broke Bouchard five times in the match, including the final game. Bouchard, who was once ranked No. 5 in the world, won just 59 per cent of her points on first serve.
Bouchard made 32 unforced errors, while Vondrousova made 25 and also gave up three breaks to the Canadian.
“Lefties are always tough,” Bouchard said of her opponent. “It’s a different spin. You don’t see it often. She got a lot of balls back, made me feel that pressure kind of. But there were like 10 things I could have done better, so it’s more about me.”
The 24-year-old Bouchard was the only Canadian in the women’s singles draw.
Vasek Pospisil of Vancouver had his doubles match Thursday postponed while Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa combined with China’s Xu Yifan to beat Renata Voracova and Lana Arrubarrena 6-2, 6-7 and 6-1 in women’s doubles.
She also combined with Mate Pavic to post a 6-0 and 6-4 win over Jamie Loeb and Noah Rubin in mixed doubles.
Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., and Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., the two remaining Canadians alive in singles action, play third-round matches on Friday.
In other action, Alexander Zverev is finally hanging around for the third round of the U.S. Open.
The No. 4 seed beat Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 on Thursday, winning a second-round match for the first time in his four trips to Flushing Meadows.
The German leads the ATP Tour in wins this year, has already won three ATP Masters 1000 titles and at 21 is the popular pick as the young star most likely to have a Grand Slam breakthrough and end the stranglehold veterans such as Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic have had on the majors.
Maybe it will come during these two weeks. Zverev — perhaps benefiting from a tame early draw that started with two lucky losers — hasn’t dropped more than four games in a set.
Federer and Djokovic were also in action on another hot day, the third in a row with an extreme heat policy in effect. Men were permitted a 10-minute break between the third and fourth sets of their singles matches, while the break came after the second set for the women.
Federer won an afternoon match against Frenchman Benoit Paire in straights sets — 7-5, 6-4 and 6-4 — improving to 18-0 in second-round matches at the U.S. Open. The No. 2 seed has won all seven meetings against Paire in his career.
The win earns Federer an appointment against No. 30 seed Nick Kyrgios, who beat France’s Pierre-hughes Herbert 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-0 in a match that featured controversy, when umpire Mohamed Lahyani climbed down from his chair to urge the Australian to give a better effort while trailing 0-3 in the second set.
Djokovic beat American Tennys Sandgren 6-1, 6-3, 6-7 and 6-2 in a late match, while Marin Cilic, the No. 7 seed and the 2014 U.S. Open champion, advanced by beating Hubert Hurkacz 6-2, 6-0 and 6-0.
Angelique Kerber, the 2016 champion and No. 4 seed, and sixth-seeded Caroline Garcia both were pushed to third sets, with Kerber beating Johanna Larsson 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, and Garcia outlasting Monica Puig 6-2, 1-6, 6-4. No. 5 Petra Kvitova had an easier time, beating Yafan Wang in straight sets.
Lefties are always tough. It’s a different spin. She got a lot of balls back, made me feel that pressure kind of. But there were like 10 things I could have done better.