Westmount's Eugenie Bouchard rallies to reach French Open third round

Eugenie Bouchard celebrates after winning her second-round match against Australia's Daria Gavrilova at the French Open in Paris on Sept. 30, 2020.

Eugenie Bouchard is taking full advantage of the wild-card entry she received in this year’s French Open tennis championships.

Bouchard, whose career appeared to be on life support at this time last year, rallied to beat Daria Gavrilova of Australia 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 Wednesday to reach the third round in Paris.

“I’m just happy to play tennis, to play a tournament in this pandemic year, to have a job,” the native of Westmount told reporters after her win.

The victory was the latest in a series of strong performances by Bouchard since the tennis tour resumed in August. She took advantage of a wild-card entry to reach the quarter-finals of the Prague Open and then reached the final of a WTA event in Istanbul after going through the qualifying.

Bouchard, 26, who has benefitted from the coaching of former player Rennae Stubbs, was hoping to get a wild-card entry for the qualifying event in Paris and was surprised when she was given a spot in the main draw. Her strong results in the two events leading up to the French Open helped, but there was also an intervention by Tennis Canada, which will extend a similar gift to a French player for next year’s Rogers Cup.

Playing on an outside court far from the main stadium at Roland Garros, both players struggled with their serves early in the match Wednesday. There were 12 service breaks in the match, but Bouchard picked up her game as the match went on and held serve throughout the deciding set. She hammered away at Gavrilova’s backhand and showed the results of an intensive fitness program under the tutelage of Gil Reyes, who was Andre Agassi’s fitness guru.

This is Bouchard’s best performance at a Grand Slam since she reached the third round of the Australian Open in 2017. Her best performance in Paris was in 2014, when she reached the semifinals. She achieved a career-high ranking of No. 5 later that year, but she dropped out of the top 300 at the end of last year.

With her win Wednesday, she climbed to No. 139 in the live rankings and she can go to No. 115 f she beats No. 54 Iga Swiatek of Poland on Friday.

The other Canadian in the women’s draw, 18-year-old Leylah Annie Fernandez of Laval, plays Polona Hercog of Slovenia in the second round Thursday. This is a David-vs.-Goliath matchup with the 6-foot Hercog towering over the 5-foot-4 Fernandez.

phickey@postmedia.com

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