Bouchard runs out of gas in Montreal
Pressure ends Canuck’s roll; Kerber, Halep, Keys, Kucova advance to semifinals
MONTREAL— The pressure and expectations brought out the best and worst of Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard at the women’s Rogers Cup. The Westmount, Que., native thrilled her hometown crowd with wins over higher-ranked Lucie Safarova and Dominika Cibulkova in the opening two rounds, then dashed their hopes by wasting a lead and losing a third-round match to unheralded Kristina Kucova, a hardworking Slovak who got to the main draw through the qualifying tournament.
After the defeat, Bouchard spoke of the pressure to win at home, to reach a quarter-finals and to come through in a match she was expected to win.
“I do think the pressure got to me a little bit, especially being here in Montreal, trying to make quarters,” Bouchard said after the late Thursday match. “Also, having all the attention on me three days in a row takes a lot of energy out of me. I was not able to control my emotions as well.”
Bouchard won the first four games against Kucova and looked to be in control, but gradually lost it against an opponent who doggedly returned ball after ball. Waiting for the nervous favourite to make mistakes proved a solid strategy for Kucova, who was beside herself with joy after the upset win.
It was painful to watch for Bouchard’s supporters, including Federation Cup team captain Sylvain Bruneau who leaves Monday night with Bouchard and doubles specialist Gabriella Drabowski of Ottawa for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. He said pressure played “a big part” in Bou- chard’s exit.
“She started well and was not able to maintain it,” said Bruneau. “And when it got a little tougher she had many, many missed opportunities and it just added up.”
It didn’t help Bouchard had to deal with a stomach problem after her second-round match, although she said it was not a factor.
She also arrived to some negative press, with local columnists taking her to task for everything from her English-accented French, calling herself Genie instead of the French version Eugenie, saying at the Citi Open last week that she may stay in Washington to visit museums rather than go to the “craziness” in Montreal and generally not making more of an effort to connect with her fans.
Bouchard did some fence-mending during the week, taking part in fan events, giving interviews and, most of all, playing well on court until running into Kucova.
In Friday’s quarter-finals, secondseeded Angelique Kerber advanced with a thorough 6-2, 6-2 victory over unseeded Daria Kasatkina. Simona Halep, the No. 5 seed, recovered from a slow start to defeat Svetlana Kuznetsova 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, while 10th-seeed Madison Keys defeated No. 16 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-6, 1-6, 6-0 and Kucova, one night after upsetting Bouchard, stunned Johanna Konta 6-4, 6-3.