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Eugenie Bouchard leads Canada to Fed Cup win over Serbia, now aspires to top group

MONTREAL – The Canadian Fed Cup team was handed a huge opportunity this weekend.

They could look over the net at their Serbian opponents and not see Ana Ivanovic, or Jelena Jankovic, both whom have been ranked No. 1 in the world.

They took full advantage of it. And now, the next step is to earn a promotion into World Group I, to become part of the top eight nations in the world of women's tennis.

Going in with a 2-0 lead, Canadian No. 1 Genie Bouchard clinched the tie by winning the first singles match Sunday, 6-0, 6-3 over Serbian No. 1 Vesna Dolonc. That gave the Canadians an unassailable lead in the best-of-five-match tie.

"I’m happy. I think I played two solid matches and helped Canada beat Serbia, and that’s something I’m proud of. I think the whole team was really excited this week and after we won, we were really happy. Now we look forward to the next step in April," Bouchard said.

Bouchard, who was taking a 12-hour overnight flight Doha Sunday night to get back to the grind of the regular WTA Tour (her first match is on Tuesday), won both her matches with impressive ease.

She won 24 of the 28 games she played, had 49 winners to just 27 unforced errors, and needed less than two hours to complete both.

The only small hiccup the 19-year-old from Westmount, Que. had all weekend came in the second set Sunday against Dolonc – much of it her own doing.

"On my serve at the beginning of the second set, I didn’t feel that good. I double-faulted. I wasn’t happy with that, but it was just my fault, not because of any injury," she said, in response to a question about whether she was favouring a foot injury. "I missed some balls. Maybe I got out of the match a bit. But I regrouped, and I was more consistent with my shots after that."

Because the tie was clinched, the second singles match was not played. They went straight to the doubles, where Serbian youngsters Jovana Jaksic and Nina Stojanovic prevailed over Canada's Sharon Fichman and Gabriela Dabrowski 2-6, 6-3 [10-8]. The match wasn't a factor in the overall result. But it did give the 17-year-old Stojanovic, a late replacement for the injured

Bojana Jovanovski, an opportunity to get her feet wet in Fed Cup.

Now, the Canadians must wait until Tuesday to find out who their opponent will be on the weekend of April 19-20, for a World Group I playoff.

At least, they hope it will be Monday. One World Group I tie remains undecided. Because of persistent rain in Seville, Spain, the tie between Spain and the Czech Republic has yet to even get through the Saturday singles matches. They will try again on Monday.

The four winners of the World Group II ties this weekend (Canada, Argentina, France and Poland) will each meet one of the four losing teams in the World Group I ties (The U.S., Slovakia, Russia and either Spain or the Czech Republic).

If the Canadians draw either Slovakia (which has Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova and respected veteran Daniela Hantuchova on its roster) and the Czech Republic (which has a very deep team that is missing top gun Petra Kvitova this weekend), they would play the tie at home.

If they draw the U.S., Spain or Russia, a coin flip will determine who has home-court advantage.

Both the Americans and Russians were missing all of their top players this weekend – a major factor in their defeats. The Americans went without either Serena or Venus Williams and lost to a second-tier Italian squad; the Russians had, well, absolutely no one you've ever heard of and were trounced by Australia.

When April comes around, the landscape could look quite a bit different.

But if you want to play in the big leagues, you have to beat big-leaguers.