Canada’s Bouchard ousted at Wimbledon
Andy Murray feeling pressure to capitalize as big stars exit early
LONDON — Eugenie Bouchard progressed further than she ever has at a Grand Slam in her young career, but she was left lamenting missed chances that could have prolonged her run into the depleted field at Wimbledon.
Bouchard lost her bid for a spot in the fourth round at Wimbledon on Friday as the Montreal teenager lost to Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro 7-5, 6-2.
“This was an opportunity that I had that I lost,” Bouchard said. “I felt generally the whole match I had a few loose shots, loose errors, that I normally don’t make that I was making.”
Despite the loss, it was a career-best grand-slam showing for the 66th-ranked Bouchard. Her previous best was a berth in the second round of the French Open earlier this year.
The 2012 junior champion at the All England Club fought hard from 4-1 down in both sets but was unable to close the gap against the experienced Spaniard. The first set went well over an hour, the second was done in an additional 29 minutes.
“She returned really well, I knew that going in,” Bouchard said. “My serve wasn’t as good as previous matches.”
Bouchard limited her winning chances with 21 unforced errors in the opening set. She saved two set points in the ninth game, forced her opponent to four break points in the 11th and then dropped her own serve in the 12th as Suarez Navarro fired a backhand winner down the line.
Bouchard failed to regroup in the second set as the pair traded early breaks before the Spaniard ran off into the lead.
Bouchard saved two match points in the final game before sending a forehand out to end it with 24 winners and 32 unforced errors.
“For sure it went differently than I hoped,” Bouchard said. “She was very consistent, and more aggressive than me. I should have done more to try to control the points — instead she did.
“I’ll take lots of experience out of this whole week and try to learn from all the mistakes and take the good and the bad and just keep working hard.”
Two Canadian men’s doubles teams advanced, with veteran Daniel Nestor and Swedish partner Robert Lindstedt reaching the third round.
The sixth-seeded Nestor and Lindstedt defeated Argentines Eduardo Schwank and Horacio Zeballos 6-1, 7-5, 6-3 and will next face the winner from a match between ninth-seeded Britons Colin Fleming and Jonathan Marray and Czech Frantisek Cermak and Slovak Michael Mertinak.
There was also first-round success for Canadians Jesse Levine and Vasek Pospisil as that unseeded combination defeated Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic and American Rajeev Ram, 6-2, 6-4, 6-1.
Levine and Pospisil will next take on American Nicolas Monroe and German Simon Stadler.
Meanwhile, when a 19-stroke exchange ended with Andy Murray’s Wimbledon opponent slapping a forehand into the net, thousands of Centre Court spectators rose in unison.
They applauded Murray’s first service break. They screamed for joy. They waved their Union Jacks and Scottish flags. It was only a third-round match, merely 12 minutes and three games old, yet to some that tiny early edge seemed massively meaningful.
So imagine the reaction, louder and livelier, when the second-seeded Murray finished off his 6-2, 6-4, 7-5 victory over 32nd-seeded Tommy Robredo of Spain less than two hours later Friday to advance to Week 2. And then, for a moment, try to fathom what would happen if Murray ever were to win the final point of The Championships, as the Grand Slam tournament is known around here, and become the first British man in 77 years to hoist the trophy.
“You need to be professional enough to not let that stuff bother you and just concentrate on each match,” said Murray, who has won 20 of his past 21 contests on grass, including runs to last year’s final at the All England Club and a London Olympics gold medal. “I did a good job of that today. I played well. My best match of the tournament, so far.”
The locals’ hopes that Murray will follow up his 2012 U.S. Open victory with another major title, this time at Wimbledon, only increased in the aftermath of surprisingly early losses this week by seventime champion Roger Federer, two-time winner Rafael Nadal and two-time semifinalist JoWilfried Tsonga.
All were seeded in the top six, and all were on Murray’s half of the draw.