Eugenie Bouchard made a strong statement after returning to the WTA Tour, ousting eighth seed Veronika Kudermetova in a Round of 32 match at the Prague Open.

Bouchard looked in great touch from the word ‘go’, and took a bagel set off Kudermetova, who is ranked 290 places above Bouchard in the WTA rankings. Bouchard, ranked 330 in the world, then earned another break of serve midway through the second set. She held on to the break thereafter.

She eventually beat the world number 40 Kudermetova 6-0, 6-3, on her first match point. The match lasted just over an hour.

The Canadian converted four of the seven break-points she had. She also saved all five break-points that Kudermetova had on her serve.

Third main-draw win for Eugenie Bouchard in 2020

This was just the third main draw match win for Eugenie Bouchard this season. She will now face the winner of Tamara Zidansek and Katerina Siniakova in the Round of 16.

“I feel that the first set was tough in almost every game. It’s not like it was a walk in the park. I’m proud of myself for battling in every single game,” Bouchard said after the match.

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“My rhythm was off on my serve in the first set, so I need to look at that. I felt better with it in the second set, so I’m happy I could find a solution,” she added.

The Prague Open is just the second WTA event since the Tour restarted post the lengthy break.

Bouchard’s comeback off to a strong start

Recently, Bouchard had also said that she aims to play more ITF Challenger events along with WTA events to bolster her WTA ranking.

“With my ranking, I definitely need to play some ITF Challengers, which is good for me to play anyway because I need matches. Get those wins, get that confidence back,” she said in a recent podcast. 

“I don’t think the ITF schedule is fully released yet so we’re still in the dark which is tough,” she added.

“I want to play as many matches as I can and mix it up. With the ITF matches, I want to play on the WTA Tour as well at whichever events I can get wild-card entries into. So I want to start there,” Bouchard went on to say.

Source – WTA