Eugenie Bouchard steams out Vandeweghe at Hawaii Open
Maybe it was the relaxing waters off of Honolulu or the enticing foods that helped Eugenie Bouchard to be the aggressor of the Hawaii Open, a three-day exhibition sponsored by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. She was the fourth match of the evening playing against CoCo Vandeweghe which everyone was anticipating since early evening.
Eugenie Bouchard's 2018 season was very much a lacklustre performance having its ups and downs and most times having less consistency than needed. But here on the island Bouchard came on aggressive and beautifully dictated her shots over Vandeweghe who has fallen to nearly down 100 in ranking. The ankle injury had been the problem for a long time and now that it had healed, her timing on the court was below par, quite unusual for her traditional game strategy.
Bouchard was in a great mood, showing satisfaction on and off the court as she took a break for refreshments and a deserved rest. It seems that Vandeweghe and Bouchard exchanged tactics for it was the Canadian who hammered the balls, making her opponent frustrated and anxious. In the stands was a friend of Bouchard's professional golfer Michelle Wie who had admitted on their switching of sports recreationally. "She was teaching me some tennis and I was showing her some golf", Wie had mentioned to the on-court reporter.
The first set was all Bouchard. She painted the lines, cross courted superbly, came up and volleyed her victory points in style. Michael Joyce, Bouchard's new coach was sitting nearby watching and entertained by the fantastic plays and strategies. Vandeweghe was mesmerized in a 'not-so-good' way as she was creating many unforced errors during much of the match and couldn't gather some consistency on the really good points she did the show. The first set was 6-0 in Bouchard's favour and the second set went to 4-3 then 4-all but the Canadian would have none of it and at 40-30,m put the ball away in a dynamic fashion over the net to lead 5-4 in the last set. The pressure and suspense were on. Vandeweghe levelled the games to 5-all causing a bit of timing pace to intimidate Bouchard. But Vandeweghe kept giving the gifts to Bouchard when a return was a mis-hit and went into the stands, making the Canadian move closer to the finish line scoring 6-5. "The crowd didn't want to see the beat down that was going on at the time", a commentator had said concerning Vandeweghe's climb back into the match. A tiebreak had occurred with 6-all in the second set and Bouchard was leading quickly with 6-2 in points. It wasn't long before Bouchard got the last point to win the match 6-0, 7-6. "I was like super nervous before the match...I was very solid and consistent and that helped me a lot...", said a smiling Bouchard who goes on to the second day, confident and happy with her opening results.
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2AbnGdE
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