Eugenie Bouchard who announced her arrival in the world of women’s tennis this year by stunning some of the top seeds in the three slams had to suffer a shocking defeat to an American qualifier at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. What was even more astonishing was the scoreline of her defeat which read 6-0, 6-2, 6-0. Her nemesis this time was a young unheralded American named Shelby Rogers. Her defeat came as a huge disappointment for the home crowd, who were there to see her advance in the tournament.
After the game Bouchard admitted that she was not feeling great on the court and it was one of those days when nothing seemed to work for her. She hoped that she will come out of this defeat a lot more stronger. The home crowd had a lot of expectations from Bouchard and an immense hype was created around her as her rise has been no short of incredible.
However, on Tuesday she was totally out of sorts as she was clearly intimidated and frightened by her opponent and her coach Nick Saviano who came on court to give her some pep talk said that she wanted to leave the court after she lost five games on the trot in the first set. She however, made a comeback in the second set giving the partisan crowd something to cheer about. Her dramatic comeback raised some hopes, but it was all shattered as in the third set her feet seemed to have stopped moving and it became clear that she was unable to handle the nerves.
Credit should also be given to the 21-year-old Rogers who has made massive strides since struggling as a junior player. Her ground-strokes in the third set was simply unplayable and she was hitting a number of winners. Hopefully the Canadian would make a strong comeback in the next tournament as she is definitely a promising player.