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Injured Bouchard Bounced Out of Wimbledon Opener


The green grass of Court No. 3 looked like rock bottom for Eugenie Bouchard.

A year after her inspired run to the Wimbledon final, an injured Bouchard was bounced out of the first round, suffering a dispiriting 7-6 (3), 6-4, loss to 117th-ranked Chinese qualifier Ying-Ying Duan, who had never won a Grand Slam main-draw match before today.

After the match, Bouchard said she played with a torn abdominal muscle.

"After Eastbourne, we did testing and I have a grade 2 tear in my ab," Bouchard said. "Probably wouldn't have been smart to play here, but I couldn't pass on Wimbledon. So I did kind of minimal preparation to save myself for the match."

The horror show continues for Bouchard, who suffered her 11th defeat in her last 13 matches. She has won just four matches since the Australian Open.

The 12th-ranked Canadian put a forehand into net on match point and dropped her head in disappointment after dropping her second straight Grand Slam opener. Last month, world No. 43 Kristina Mladenovic toppled Bouchard in her French Open first-round match.

Continuing her stunning downward spiral, Bouchard will lose 1,200-ranking points she earned for reaching the 2014 Wimbledon final, which could cause her to fall from the Top 30.

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Struggling with the abdominal injury, confidence crisis and predictable playing style, Bouchard has not won back-to-back matches since she beat qualifier Lucie Hradecka and CoCo Vandeweghe in succession at Indian Wells last March.

Beyond the obvious pressure of trying to follow up a strong season in which she reached semifinals at the Australian Open and Roland Garros followed by her surge to the Wimbledon final, what exacly is wrong with Bouchard's game?

ESPN analyst and former Wimbledon champion John McEnroe suggests there are two primary problems:

1. Bouchard's aggressive first-strike style requires confidence, which she clearly lacks.

2. Bouchard has not recovered from the 6-3, 6-0 thrashing she absorbed at the hands of Petra Kvitova in the 2014 final, which McEnroe asserts exposed her as a one-dimensional power player with no Plan B.

"It appeared like she was so arrogant, which arrogant can be a good thing on the court," McEnroe said. "I don't know her off the court, but to me, if you're exposed, like she was in the Wimbledon final, because last year I thought she was playing well, I picked her to win the tournament.  She got to the final, but then she was sort of out-hit. She was out-played. That was the bottom line. 

"Doesn't seem like she's got another gear, another place to go. If she wants to get it back, in my opinion, she has to have a Plan B, possibly C. It doesn't always work with certain people. You have to be able to be versatile. What I see is there's no versatility right now."

Photo credit: Wimbledon


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