Bouchard heads back over Kuznetsova in Istanbul

Eugenie Bouchard aced her first victory over a top-30 player since two years in a beguile encounter with Svetlana Kuznetsova. She squashed seed one 7-6 (7-3) 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 in a three-hour face-off to reach the 2020 quarterfinals at the Istanbul Open on Thursday.

The Canadian had been defeated in all the three matches played previously against Kuznetsova. Here too, she had almost lost the grip in the opening set and further, dissipated three match points in the second set. However, in the third, she bounced back, recovered and took over the control to close out the win.

Bouchard bagged 67.1 per cent of points on first serve. She broke Kuznetsova six times. The 26-year-old remarked on her win in what has been an encouraging year. She said, “That was extremely tough mentally. I blocked out mentally that I had missed match-point opportunities, so I had this anger – but I was calm. I had this calm anger at the start of the third set. That motivated me – I wanted to do the right thing after messing up. I wanted to make things better.”

“It’s definitely going to help my confidence,” Bouchard went on to say.

“I already had confidence because of the hard work and I just feel like matches like this are just results of that. It takes a lot to get to this point. It’s a long time coming. It’s more just validation that all that hard work is for something,” she further added.

Bouchard next battles Montenegrin Danka Kovinic who crashed seed six, Alison Van Uytvanck 6-3 6-4. Further, Caroline Garcia falls 6-1 6-4 to Tereza Martincova, who faces Aliaksandra Sasnovich next. Paula Badosa opposes Polona Hercog for the quarters. The third seed blasted Jasmine Paolini in straight sets. Rebecca Peterson will battle Patricia Tig in the other last-eight match.