This content was published 8 years ago. It may refer to a past edition of the Internazionali d’Italia.
Eugenie Bouchard underlined her status as one of tennis’ rising stars with a notable victory over second seed Angelique Kerber at Foro Italico. Big things are expected of the 22-year-old Canadian, runner-up at Wimbledon in 2014, and she demonstrated her class with a 6-1 5-7 7-5 triumph over the second seeded German.
“Was it one of my biggest wins? I think in terms of her ranking, yeah for sure,” said Bouchard. “I mean, it turned into a battle. I was kind of cruising a little bit, and then I made it complicated for myself. At least I stayed tough until the end.
“I was telling myself little things to try and remind myself to try and play better and told myself to battle. You can’t expect an easy match from a great player.
“How rewarding? For sure I’m happy to win, but at the same time I’m disappointed in myself having a lead like I had or, you know, I feel like I could have done better in that second set, you know. My goal next time is if I’m in a position like that is to really be more mentally disciplined and keep pushing. Because, you know, these players, if you give them a chance they will come back.”
“I can say that the first one-and-a-half sets I was completely not playing my game and I was completely not on the court,” admitted Kerber. “So I was just trying to fighting back. I was not playing my best tennis, but of course I was fighting and the third set was really close.
“I’m disappointed that I was not playing my best tennis. I was playing not good the first set. And also the second set was not my tennis. So that’s why of course I’m disappointed to lose here in the first round. Right now I will try to go back to my rhythm, fight in the next few days and being ready for Paris.”
It was a day of shocks in the women’s draw. In addition to defeat for Victoria Azarenka Roberta Vinci ended Italian interest in their home competition by losing 6-0, 6-4 to Jo Konta with the Brit only losing seven points in the first set.
Ana Ivanovic also lost in three sets to qualifier Christina McHale while sixth seed Simona Halep went down also in three to Daria Gavrilova. There was a further shock as 10th seed Lucie Safarova exited to Misaki Doi. But Svetlana Kuznetsova and Timea Bacsinszky both progressed.
The thrilling day continued right into the evening too. Petra Kvitova was the next big name to be eliminated as she lost 6-3 6-4 to Madison Keys of America.
And Venus Williams was also beaten late into the evening in the longest match of this year’s tournament so far. The American showed all of her admired battling qualities but in the end Timea Babos clinched a 6-7 7-5 6-4 win in two hours and 55 minutes.
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