Momentum swings ground Canadians at Wimbledon

Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., was eliminated after dropping a 0-6, 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (3) decision to Benoit Paire of France in second-round play at Wimbledon.

Shapovalov, the No. 26 seed, also missed on a crucial set point that would have given him the fourth set and tied the match. But Paire got out of trouble with a perfect lob to the baseline, and went on to win the set, and the match, in a tiebreaker.

“I just have to look over the match again and do some brainstorming, find out why this keeps happening,” Shapovalov said. “It was kind of the same story at the French Open. I had a lot of momentum going my way and all of a sudden it just slipped away from me.” Earlier, Eugenie Bouchard’s four-match winning streak ended. The 24-year-old native of Westmount, Que., dropped a 6-4, 7-5 decision to No. 17 seed Ashleigh Barty of Australia in the second round of the grass-court major on Thursday. Bouchard, who won three qualifying matches to get into the main draw after seeing her ranking tumble to No. 188, led 5-2 in the second set against Barty and had one set point, but couldn’t pull it off.

The results left No. 13 seed Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., as the lone Canadian left in singles play. Raonic is scheduled to face Dennis Novak of Austria in the third round on Friday.

It was a better day for Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski. The sixthseeded women’s doubles team of Dabrowski and China’s Xu Yifan knocked off American Alison Riske and Ukraine’s Olga Savchuk 6-7 (5), 6-2, 10-8. Meanwhile, Vancouver’s Vasek Pospisil and American Ryan Harrison lost 6-4, 7-6 (8), 6-2 against the German duo of Philipp Petzschner and Tim Puetz in a first-round men’s doubles match on Thursday.