After a year away, Eugenie Bouchard back in the Fed Cup fold vs. Slovakia

CHARLESTON, S.C. – It's been a year since Genie Bouchard played Fed Cup, although in actual fact those 12 months only meant one tie – a World Group II first-round clash with Belarus in Quebec City last February.

But Fed Cup coach Sylvain Bruneau confirmed to Eh Game has confirmed that the top Canadian will be in the fold when the Canadian squad heads to the Aegon Arena In Bratislava, Slovakia in less than two weeks to play a tie the Canadian women need to win, or be relegated to the Fed Cup's zonal competition.

The tie will be played indoors on red clay, scheduled as it is just at the beginning of the professional tennis tours' spring clay-court season, leading up to the French Open in late May.

Bouchard had not entered the big women's event in Stuttgart, Germany, which takes place the week immediately following Fed Cup also indoors on red clay. Given her ranking at the time of the entry deadline, the 22-year-old would have ended up in the qualifying at that tournament. So far in this comeback season, Bouchard has preferred to play smaller events where she would be directly into the main draw rather than the bigger events where she would have had to fight out in the preliminary rounds. But perhaps she had Fed Cup in her plans all along; there also is a smaller WTA Tour stop in Istanbul, Turkey that week and she didn't enter that one, either.

The Canadian doesn't need to play the tie to qualify for the summer Olympics in Rio; those criteria have been met.

Bouchard skipped February's tie in Quebec City, which was also notable by the absence of Belarus No. 1 Victoria Azarenka. She opted for a training block instead, reasoning that because of the aftermath of the concussion she suffered last September at the US Open, her offseason had been compromised and it was a better play to try to make up for lost time there.

But the last three times Canada has needed her to either vie for a promotion, or stave off a relegation, Bouchard has been there.

Along with teammate Sharon Fichman, Bouchard won the decisive doubles against Ukraine in April, 2013, a victory that allowed Canada to earn a promotion out of the zonal competition netherworld and into World Group II (comprised of the tennis nations ranked No. 9-16 by the ITF).

In April, 2014, Bouchard won both her singles matches against Slovakia (Jana Cepelova and Kristina Kucova) to allow Canada to move up to World Group I, the top eight women's tennis nations in the world.

A year ago, as Bouchard was struggling on court during a 2015 season she'd rather forget, she lost both her singles matches against a Romanian squad that didn't include top-five player SImona Halep. Canada's 3-2 loss in the tie dropped it  down to World Group II once again. Bouchard lost to Alexandra Dulgueru and Andreea Mitu (both ranked well below her) on a weekend that featured the second installment of the Bouchard "handshake" drama.

In a coincidental, random twist of fate, Bouchard will face Dulgheru in the first round of the Volvo Car Open in Charleston Tuesday.

The Canadian had been unseeded; her original first-round opponent was Shuai Zhang of China. But after No. 9 seed Jelena Jankovic withdrew with a shoulder injury before the beginning of main draw play, the draw was re-shuffled; Bouchard ended up added to the group of 16 seeded players as the No. 17 seed.

She was moved into another spot in the draw, and will now face Dulgheru.