Yahoo Sports 
Another finals loss to Petra Kvitova, but Eugenie Bouchard back to No. 7 in the world
Canadian Genie Bouchard summed it up succinctly as she addressed the crowd in Wuhan, China after her 6-3, 6-4 loss to Petra Kvitova in the final.
"She’s beaten me in two finals now, so I have to figure out what to do against her," Bouchard said.
It's easier said then done. While the 20-year-old Canadian was a little more competitive than she was in that Wimbledon final in July, when Kvitova steamrolled her 6-3, 6-0, the issues were the same.
In fact, this match wasn't as close as the score. Kvitova served for it at 6-3, 5-2 after having broken the 20-year-old Canadian for the second time in the second set. But at the end of an eight-minute game, one in which Kvitova erased a love-40 deficit and five break points, Bouchard finally managed to break her opponent's serve for the first time in the match.
The second time, Kvitova made no mistake.
Here's what Bouchard said after her semi-final win, about what happened at Wimbledon and what she needed to do:
“I hope tomorrow I can kind of do my thing more on the court and not get, I don’t know, maybe pushed around so much. I need my revenge. I’m going to try really hard to get that," she told the media in Wuhan. “I didn’t impose myself enough in the Wimbledon final, and she was the one kind of controlling the points all the time. She played really, really well, so there wasn’t too much I could do.”
There wasn't much Bouchard could do this time, either.
She certainly had found her form throughout the week, notably in Friday's semi-final against Caroline Wozniacki. She felt she was playing as well as she had at Wimbledon, which was the last tournament before this one where she was firing on all cylinders; her summer, through Montreal and the U.S. Open, had been a trying one.
In the end, the edge comes down to the serve. That's where Kvitova has a huge advantage. In part it's because she's a lefthander, and so can swing her serve out wide to Bouchard's backhand in the ad court. In fact, Kvitova targeted the majority of her serves to Bouchard's backhand side.
But more than that, it comes down to velocity – particularly on the second serve. Most of Kvitova's second deliveries clocked in at above 150 km/h – that's where most of Bouchard's first serves are registering these days. The Canadian seems to have sacrificed velocity for percentage (even two years ago in the junior Wimbledon final, she was regularly hitting 175 km/h) because the higher-quality opponents have been jumping her improving, but still attackable, second delivery.
Bouchard served at 80 percent in the first set Saturday, lost all four points in which she had to hit a second serve, and lost the set 6-3. She did a much better job on that in the second set – but then, it was her first serve that was getting crushed.
Meanwhile, Kvitova was winning two-thirds of the points on both her first and serves; Bouchard wasn't making any impression whatsoever. She wasn't able to impose herself at all. After a week when she was hugely successful at the net, finishing off points in the forecourt with impressive regularity, she was able to get there just four times in the entire match on Saturday.
Much is made of the Canadian's lack of a "plan B" when her aggressive game isn't working. But Kvitova doesn't have a "plan B", either. And when she's playing well, it's hard to think of any player on the WTA Tour who has a defensive backup plan effective enough to counterract it.
As vulnerable as she can be in the early rounds of matches at times, Kvitova is now 14-4 when she reaches the final of an event.
On the plus side, Bouchard will be back to No. 7 in the world rankings with the finals appearance. And while Kvitova becomes the fourth player to cement a spot in the year-end championships, the Canadian remains in good position to nail down one of the four remaining spots.
Meanwhile, the tennis circus continues uninterrupted. The players now head to a similar Premier-level event in Beijing this week – it got under way on Saturday as Bouchard and Kvitova were playing their final in Wuhan – and Bouchard has a challenging draw.
First up after a first-round bye will be Sabine Lisicki of Germany, who currently holds the serving speed record (211 km/h - set in Stanford, Calif. this summer). Currently ranked No. 26, Lisicki has been as high as No. 12 and reached the Wimbledon final in 2013.
If Bouchard gets through that one (as with the match against Wozniacki earlier this week, it will be the first time Bouchard will face the German), she could be looking at a third-round meeting with Ana Ivanovic. Down the line after that could be world No. 2 Simona Halep, and then Maria Sharapova.
