A second night on Arthur Ashe Stadium, a second tough three-set victory for Eugenie Bouchard
NEW YORK – For the second consecutive match, Canadian Genie Bouchard got the night-session slot on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
For the second consecutive match, the 20-year-old from Montreal pulled off a 6-2, 6-7, 6-4 victory in which she played far from her best, but managed to get the job done.
The difference, beyond the second-set tiebreak score (7-2 Saturday night, 7-4 Thursday night) was in the opponent.
Thursday, it was the ball-bashing Sorana Cirstea of Romania. Saturday night, it was 28-year-old Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic, a well-rounded, versatile player who does everything at a high level without having one major weapon.
"I think she was mixing up the balls well, getting a lot of balls back. I felt maybe it threw off my rhythm a little bit, her changing the rhythm. Yeah, I mean, you know, you don't always play amazing. I did way more unforced errors than I expected myself to. So that definitely didn't help my case in the second set," Bouchard said. "But, yeah, I mean, I could have definitely kept my emotions in check a little bit more. But I'm happy in the end I was able to kind of pull myself together."
That Bouchard was unhappy with herself was clear. But in the big picture, she didn't exactly lose it out on court. There were a couple of racquets bounced in anger, a lot of muttering. But no major drama.
She wasn't a whole lot happier with herself in her press conference when it was over: a few terse answers, no eye contact, her jaw firmly set.
"I was just frustrated in my level. I expect so much more from myself. To just give away so many free points is really frustrating to me. So I was definitely disappointed with that," Bouchard said. "You know, I realized in the third (set) I can still stay with her, I don't have to go for crazy shots all the time. I think I was a bit too impatient basically in the second set. ... Even if I stayed with her once in a while, I can let her lose the point, I don't always have to do an amazing winner. It's like I wanted to go for it a little too much."
You would think Bouchard's initial Arthur Ashe Stadium court experience Thursday would have served her well in this repeat performance. But even though it looked the same, it was quite a different place. That's both the beauty and the curse of basically playing in a massive wind funnel.
The wind was blowing in the completely opposite direction on Saturday. And while Bouchard said Thursday she had preferred to play with the wind at her back, this time she had more trouble with it.
"I feel like I pulled myself together at the very, very end tonight. I think I played a little better in my second round than I did tonight. But both were quality opponents. Tonight, you know, she got a lot of balls back. She made me work for it. At the same time she would occasionally come to the net, mix things up. It was the kind of variety I haven't seen much of. Generally most opponents don't do that. So it was a little different," Bouchard said. "But I'm just proud at least that I could battle. Even if it's a little bit ugly or I don't feel great, I can still pull it out, which made me happy."
The other thing that was different was the crowd. It was introduced to Bouchard on Thursday; on Saturday night, it adopted her. The fans were firmly on her side even against an opponent who also had plenty of appeal. They were chanting Bouchard's name, too. "It was special tonight. I felt so much energy on the court. I've never felt that much energy on any other tennis court in the world. So it was an unbelievable feeling playing on Arthur Ashe tonight," Bouchard said.
In the round of 16, Bouchard will play No. 17 seed Ekaterina Makarova of Russia. Given who is left in the draw – five of the top eight seeds in the women's singles have been eliminated, including No. 3 seed Petra Kvitova earlier Saturday – there's a good chance she might see that court again. The only female players with more of a claim on the big court, at this point, are the other two top seeds left in the draw: Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova.
