Eugenie Bouchard lost out to Patricia Maria Tig in the final of the WTA Istanbul Open. Bouchard made Tig work hard for the title, especially in the third set when Eugenie had saved seven match points. The Canadian’s hunt for her first title since 2014 continues as a result.

A tournament that started from the qualifying rounds for Bouchard, who faced players with much better rankings than her World No. 272. Notably, she defeated the No.1 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second round. And even though the Canadian couldn’t cross the final hurdle, she will be happy with her performance throughout the tournament.

Eugenie Bouchard vs Patricia Maria Tig: First set

Eugenie Bouchard began the final where she left off in her semifinal match. As always, the Canadian started off aggressively and got a break early to lead 3-0. Throughout the event, Bouchard has been open to taking risks, and with her accuracy, she was able to hit a lot of down the line winners. Her intensity caused a lot of unforced errors from Tig’s racket, which gave Bouchard a second break, and subsequently the set (6-2) in 37 minutes.

Second Set

Tig, however, held her nerve and didn’t give up. Her perseverance was rewarded with a break. Some costly errors from Bouchard’s racquet and some good tennis from Tig gave the Romanian an early break.

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Later, Bouchard kept knocking at her opponent’s serve, but Tig improved her game drastically to fight back successfully. Tig got a double break to lead 4-1 and later the triple break to win the set 6-1.

Third Set

Bouchard just wasn’t sharp enough in the deciding set. Tig had improved her serve and Bouchard was piling up the unforced errors. In fact, Bouchard was unable to hold her first service game in the third set. Tig did well to add to her momentum by going 3-0 up.

While Bouchard fought to get a break back, she failed to hold her serve again, going down 2-5. In the next game, Tig had a long service game in which Bouchard saved 3 match points and broke back to give herself some hope again at 4-5.

Drawing confidence from the earlier game, Bouchard served out a flawless game to restore parity at 5-5. She further saved 3 match points on her next serve and extended the set into a tie-breaker. In the tie-breaker, neither player looked comfortable in winning points on serve. Ultimately, though, Tig was able to win the set and match 2-6, 6-1, 7-6(4).

For Tig, this is an important result, as she edges closer to the top 50. She is also the 2nd highest ranked Romanian in the latest WTA rankings, behind World No.2 Simona Halep.

Despite the loss, it has been an incredible change in fortunes for Bouchard, who was ranked 330 when the WTA season restarted. Moreover, before the mid-season break, Bouchard had failed to qualify for the Australian Open as well. However, everyone saw a new and resilient Bouchard that had been missing since 2014.

The former Wimbledon finalist had vowed to do whatever it took to improve her ranking when the season restarted. Earlier, Bouchard had played the Prague Open where she reached the quarterfinal. That had boosted her ranking to 272. And now, with this run, she edges closer to the top 150.

Bouchard has been playing on clay since the restart, and so she might do really well at the French Open. The final Grand Slam of this makeshift season will begin on September 21.