Another early exit for Eugenie Bouchard on the grass, once again against Kristina Mladenovic

At some point, you'd have to think, Canadian tennis star Genie Bouchard somehow will pull out a good win and set herself back on the right track.

But Wednesday in Birmingham, England was – once again – not that day.

Bouchard, seeded No. 5 at the Aegon Classic, lost 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 to France's Kristina Mladenovic, who defeated her in the first round at the French Open a few weeks ago.

After a first-round bye, this was Bouchard's first singles match of the tournament.

"I think her game suits really well on this surface, I just tried to go out there, play my best. I didn’t expect, really, to win," Mladenovic said in a post-match interview on court.

The third set was not pretty – déja vu all over again. By the last game, in which Bouchard didn't win a point and ended things with a wild double fault, the effort and the faith weren't there.

Bouchard was the victim of a bit of bad weather timing in the first set. Down a break and serving at 3-5, 30-all, rain suspended proceedings. When the players returned to court and warmed up again, Bouchard had no time to get settled. Two unforced errors, and that was the set.

But there had been opportunities lost. Bouchard held to love in the first game after winning the toss and choosing to serve – an increasingly poor strategic decision, given her struggles on serve this season. But at 1-1, she essentially broke herself. In the next game, she had 15-40 on Mladenovic's serve, but the Frenchwomen got herself out of trouble with her big serve.

At 3-4, Bouchard had two more break points, and once again Mladenovic served herself out of trouble and benefited from a fortunate let cord. Even the net isn't on Bouchard's side these days, it seems.

The second set might have been even easier for Bouchard when she had an opportunity to break in the opening game. But again, she couldn't make it. But Bouchard did get there and when came time to serve out the set, she did so at love.

And then, it all went awry. Again, Bouchard had a break point in the opeining game, saved by a big Mladenovic serve. And once she was broken to go down 0-2, it was like a snowball hurtling down the slope, gaining size and speed.

At 0-4, Bouchard slammed a ball against the backdrop; fortunately there were no ball kids or linespeople in the line of fire. Mindful of the instructions from the chair umpire at the beginning of the match about treating the grass surface with loving care, it didn't go further.

"I felt very frustrated," Bouchard told the media in Birmingham. "But they told us that if we smack our racquets on the court we would get a huge fine — so perhaps that’s why I kept my cool."

It was bad; Bouchard won just 3-of-15 points on her own serve in that third set; she won 9-of-26 on Mladenovic's serve. She went 1-for-10 on break-point opportunities; Mladenovic was 5-for-6.

Notable once again was the fact that Bouchard didn't call on coach Sam Sumyk for the on-court consultations the WTA Tour allows. She went it alone last week in 's-Hertogenbosch, as well.

There are issues on serve for Bouchard, but not necessarily with the serve itself. Her mistakes on the second shot, the first hit after the serve is returned, continue to hurt her. They are impatient mistakes, attempts to make something happen that's not really there, because Bouchard isn't serving as well, and thus is getting better returns thrown at her on a regular basis.

The other issue was the way she handled Mladenovic's second serve. It was a continuation of the match at the French Open in the sense that Mladenovic – who possesses plenty of weapons on a tennis court – has an absolute duck of a second serve. It's slow, it sits up, and it just begs to be crushed. But as at Roland Garros, Bouchard too often didn't even put the return in court.

What's next? The Canadian is scheduled to play her third straight grass-court warmup, this one at Eastbourne. Whether or not her ranking will drop will depend on the results of Karolina Pliskova and Angelique Kerber as the week goes on. Amazingly, the Canadian could even gain a spot and get back into the top 10 unless one or both of them goes deep into the weekend.

Eastbourne will feature 35 of the top 45 players in the world as direct entries, not including wild cards and qualifers, in a 48-player draw expanded from last year's 32. Bouchard will once again have a first-round bye.