It was a day of fire and ice in the women’s draw, fire from two-times winner Petra Kvitova, who took 36 minutes in her first round match to burn off Holland’s Kiki Bertens and an ice from last year’s beaten finalist Eugenie Bouchard.
The Canadian’s game remains cold as she slumped to a 7-6(3), 6-4 defeat against Chinese qualifier Ying-Ying Duan after sweeping into the game last year as a credible replacement in waiting for Maria Sharapova. But against Duan, an injured Bouchard was undone by a litany of unforced errors, double faults and erratic shot-making. In the end they all became her enemy even with an imploring crowd behind her.
Playing with an injured abdomen, Bouchard was far from the force of nature that carved her way into last year’s Wimbledon final. It was also another chapter in the sorry story of this year’s campaign.
“I definitely felt tight in the first set but also unprepared for this match,” said the world number 12. “After Eastbourne we did testing and I had a grade two tear on my ab. I did minimal preparation to save myself for the match.
“I was taped. Felt okay and tried not to think about it. But I haven’t practiced that much and felt my timing was off. It’s not an excuse as I chose to play. But I was definitely off.”
In an absurd, brief exchange the 21-year-old was also asked about an apparent code violation handed out to her because of a black bra that was exposed.
“I was not aware of that. No one told me anything about my bra,” she said straight faced in the surreal interlude in an otherwise downbeat press conference.
Bouchard was hoping that her disastrous fall from almost being crowned queen of Wimbledon last year and reaching the semi-finals of the Australian and French Open to a catastrophic career collapse was behind her.
Humiliating defeat
Her fall, though, came not from injury or illness but a mental block she believes she picked up sometime after her humiliating Wimbledon final defeat to Kvitova 6-3, 6-0. She lost in 55 minutes, which knocked her from and ascending path. It was the fastest final in over 30 years.
She has been tumbling down ever since just as sports marketing gurus were predicting, that as she reached the Wimbledon final, her game, looks and poise would go on to surpass the Russian player as the richest female athlete in the world.
But the second season syndrome, which the Americans call the “sophomore slump” has cruelly kicked in and the trajectory has plummeted.
The Canadian has now lost 12 of her past 14 matches. The run included a first-round defeat by Kristina Mladenovic in Paris, another by Tatjana Maria, then the world number 113, in Miami as well as embarrassing losses in both her singles rubbers in a Fed Cup tie against Romania in her home city of Montreal.
It was there the pressure began to show publicly when she was ridiculed by her opponents for refusing to shake hands at the draw ceremony.
When she won a match at Eastbourne last week, there was some light beginning to appear. But she then retired from the tournament with the injury that flared up again, declaring that she would play at Wimbledon this week “no matter what, even if I’m on one leg”.
She also spoke of doing the hunting prior to Wimbledon 2014 and then becoming the hunted. But at the end of last year, changes swept in as she switched management companies and parted from Nick Saviano, her coach of 12 years. She replaced him with Sam Sumyk, Victoria Azarenka’s long-time coach.
Yesterday’s outing was therefore one about possible restoration and recovery against a player ranked 117 in the world. But the end numbers condemned her. Bouchard hit 23 unforced errors and handed Duan 10 double faults. Just over half of her first serves went in.
Put it behind me
“Each time I had a loss, there were different reasons for each one,” she said afterwards.
“And today there was a different reason for this one. It’s unfortunate that it happened at my favourite tournament of the year . . . that I won’t get to play any more matches here this year. But I’m going to try to put it behind me and look forward.
“In my head, it was no question I was going to play, even though I was advised not to. It’s just the way I am. It’s so hard to be forced not to play tennis, especially at Wimbledon.
“I’m disappointed because I lost. And it was probably not the smartest decision . . . In a way I’m going to be kind of happy to put this period behind me, for sure. Very disappointed in my last couple months.
“It has kind of been a stressful time, you know, these big tournaments that everyone was talking about to me. So, yeah, I’m going to be looking forward to not having people ask me every single day about the points I have to defend.”
Simona Halep, the third seed was also beaten. The Romanian, who made it to last year’s Wimbledon semi-final before Bouchard beat her in two sets, fell to Jana Cepelova. The Slovakian, ranked 106 in the world won 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.
