Eugenie Bouchard posts best victory of the season against American Sloane Stephens at the BNP Paribas Open

INDIAN WELLS – It seemed the stars could be aligned for a statement match, a victory to send a message to the tennis world that Genie Bouchard’s comeback season was well and truly an actual thing.

The 22-year-old from Montreal loves the big stadiums, the big occasions – lives for them.

She had put together some match wins this season, albeit mostly in smaller tournaments against lesser-ranked opponents, but at least she had some match confidence.

Most importantly, Bouchard was playing a familiar foe.

All she had to do was execute, not let the nerves get in the way and hope that opponent Sloane Stephens didn’t have a great day at the office.

That was a lot easier said than done, especially given Bouchard's recent history. But she rose to this occasion with the help of a large group of Canadian fans in a 7-5, 7-5 victory that puts the Canadian into the third round of the BNP Paribas Open.

Here's what it looked like.

Seeded No. 21, once ranked as high as No. 11 and the winner of two WTA Tour event already this season, Stephens is the highest-ranked player Bouchard has beaten in 2016 by a long way. She defeated three top-50 players en route to the final in Hobart before the Australian Open, but that was at a small event tucked away, out of the spotlight.

Defeating Stephens at a tournament just one level below the Grand Slam qualifies as a statement win, at least in Bouchard's current circumstances.

She will now play No. 12 seed (and No. 21 ranked) Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland, who made it into the top 10 in 2015 but this season, had just three match wins coming into this week. It will be the first meeting between the two.

Bouchard and Stephens basically grew up together, from a tennis perspective, at the Saviano Academy in south Florida. Bouchard knows her, knows her game, knew she was going to get some good pace to feed off and get some rhythm.

Some of the players the Canadian has faced lately, including Saisai Zheng and Risa Ozaki, and even Elina Svitolina in the Kuala Lumpur final last Sunday, were consistent ball-returners who would rally patiently until Bouchard made a mistake.

Stephens was, on some levels, a simpler task although given the American had five set points to take it to a deciding set when she served at 5-4 in the second, it could well have been far more complicated and gone the other way.

It’s premature, but if Bouchard can win her next round, she would play the winner between unseeded Daria Kasatkina and unseeded Monica Puig.

In a season when so many of the top-ranked players are struggling, there are openings and opportunities. It’s just a matter of which players have the willingness and ability to take advantage of them.