Eugenie Bouchard heads home to Montreal with little momentum, after a first-round exit in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Genie Bouchard hoped her stay in Washington, D.C. would be a lengthy one, the better to avoid the attention and demands that accompany any visit to the Rogers Cup in her hometown of Montreal.

Unfortunately, the 22-year-old ran into “good” Camila Giorgi Tuesday in her first round match, a 7-5, 6-4 loss that eliminated her from the Citi Open. And so now, she will be homeward bound.

Bouchard had been 2-0 against Giorgi, who is in some fundamental ways an exaggerated version of Bouchard in the sense that she hugs the baseline, hits the ball hard and stubbornly sticks with the partner that brought her to the dance.

The 24-year-old hits the ball harder, though – the sound of the ball off her racquet is like few others, despite her relatively slight frame.  And she serves harder – her second serve often hits 100 mph. The downside of that attack can be long stretches of inconsistency; the Italian hadn’t even won a WTA Tour match since the first round of the French Open nearly two months ago.

Not Tuesday, though, to Bouchard’s dismay.

“She hits very hard, so I feel like I didn’t have any rhythm, because we really had no rallies. Tough to play an opponent who doesn’t give you a chance,” Bouchard told Eh Game. “Usually she can make winners and errors. I stayed in the match, waited for her see if to drop her level a bit, but she played a very good match.”

Here’s the tournament video of Bouchard’s press conference, which featured some loud voices screaming some rather bizarre questions. If the Canadian’s form was off during the match, she killed it in the interview room.

Bouchard said she got off to a slow start, and never should have been in a position where she was down in the first place. Tuesday’s opponent wasn’t one that might allow her to somehow find her rhythm, thus compounding the misery.

The day began inauspiciously, with the hitting partner the tournament assigned to her having a truly poor day at the office.

After warming up the groundstrokes – or trying to – coach Nick Saviano exiled the poor guy to the sidelines and, after sending him off for another dozen balls so Bouchard could warm up her serve, he was gone – and soon was up into the stands doing an interview with a local television crew.

It was one of the more bizarre warmup scenes we’ve seen. And there’s no doubt Bouchard didn’t get any of the pace she needed in the practice to prepare her for the Giorgi onslaught.

She probably should have asked her Wimbledon doubles partner Sabine Lisicki, who was playing her first-round match at the same time (and was warming up with her coach as well) to warm up with her.

The sight of Giorgi walloping service returns back at her at top speed, within a foot of the line, when Bouchard had barely finished her service motion didn’t do much for her disposition.

Bouchard admitted her body language was a bit defeatist.

Her reaction when she broke back to get the second set back on serve at 4-5 was about the same as her reaction when one final unforced error ended the match – that is, there was almost no reaction.

“I don’t know why. I felt a bit like that at the beginning of the match. It took a few games,” Bouchard said. “In the middle of the match, too. I felt I wasn’t doing a good job on the court.

“I shouldn’t have such a discouraged attitude because there’s always a chance. I have to improve that,” she added.

It was a tough first-round draw for Bouchard, despite the positive head-to-head. Giorgi was ranked a career-best No. 30 a year ago; she’s down to No. 77 now but has lost mostly to good players in a season that was sub .500 coming in.

Compare that to Bouchard’s fellow Quebecers Françoise Abanda (who got wild-card Usue Arconada) and Aleksandra Wozniak (who drew another wild card, Jessica Pegula), and there was no time to even get her feet wet in the tournament.

It’s especially disappointing as Bouchard has reportedly really been putting pedal to metal since Wimbledon, training long and hard down in Miami before spending a few days doing promotional work in New York and Toronto before heading to D.C.

She said Tuesday that she wasn’t sure what she was going to do over in the short term, but that she might stick around and check out some museums, including the “sick” International spy Museum, to delay her homecoming by a few more days.

The Rogers Cup draw is set for Friday and as an unseeded player, it would be helpful to land on a slightly less dangerous first-round opponent for her opener Tuesday afternoon.