Bouchard bounced in first round

MONTREAL— Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard is out of the Rogers Cup after a 6-2, 6-4 first-round loss to Elise Mertens of Belgium on Tuesday.

The 129th-ranked Bouchard lost the match in one hour and 34 minutes in front of her hometown fans as she dropped to 4-11 all time at the Rogers Cup.

The Westmount, Que., native started the match poorly. She was broken three times and dropped the first five games of the first set.

The 24-year-old showed signs of life though, winning back-toback games in the first set before losing 6-2. She started the second set by winning her first three games.

But Bouchard’s service game let her down the entire match, and it allowed Mertens to claw her way back into the second set. The Canadian was broken twice in the second, for a total of five times in the match, as Mertens won the next five games en route to victory.

Bouchard connected on just 54 per cent of her first serves and won 56 per cent of her first service points.

The 15th-ranked Mertens, who is making her Rogers Cup debut, will now face either Shuai Zhang of China (No. 32) or qualifier Barbora Krejcikova (No. 232) of the Czech Republic in the second round.

Bouchard has not beaten a top-20 player since defeating Angelique Kerber at the Madrid Open in May 2017.

Earlier Tuesday, Maria Sharapova advanced to the second round with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over qualifier Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria in a match that began Monday evening.

Sharapova, ranked 22nd in the world, will face Daria Kasatkina of Russia (No. 12) or Maria Sakkari of Greece (No. 31) in the second round.

Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko was eliminated after a 6-7 (6), 6-1, 6-2 loss to Britain’s Johanna Konta. Ostapenko, the 11th seed in Montreal, committed10 double faults in the match as she came crashing out in the first round at the Rogers Cup for the third straight year.