Eugenie Bouchard survives tussle with Venus Williams, moves on to Family Circle Cup quarter-finals

Montreal's Genie Bouchard is ranked eight places higher than American veteran Venus Williams - and therefore the favorite on paper in their third-round match in Charleston, S.C. Thursday.

On the court, where it is all actually played out, the rankings weren't worth the paper they're printed on. The 13-year age difference between the two (Williams is 33, Bouchard just 20) means a wealth of competitive experience on the American's side. And with both players trying to use their serves and groundstrokes to dictate play – in other words, both trying to achieve the same goal at the expense of the other – it was going to be a matter of who executed best at crunch time.

Bouchard won fewer points than Williams (101 to 91) in the match. But she won the big points in a 7-6 (6), 2-6, 6-4 victory that put her in the quarterfinals of the Family Circle Cup for the second consecutive year.

On the court, it felt like an upset.

"It was a really tough battle. A bit ugly at times, but I just tried to fight," Bouchard said in a post-match on-court interview with ESPN, which televised the match to a wide audience in the U.S.

For most of the first set, Bouchard had her destiny in her own hands. She served for it twice – but was broken both times. In the deciding tiebreak, she was down 4-6 before somehow managing to squeak through, 8-6.

Coach Nick Saviano, who came on court for a consult, wanted more.

"Mentally, you've got to do better than this. The goal is not to win the set, the goal is to execute; the result takes care of itself," he said, while also reminding Bouchard that

Williams is more prone to errors on the forehand, so she shouldn't shy away from hitting her backhand down the line or going toe-to-toe with her in forehand rallies, to try and elicit some of those errors.

The pep talk didn't seem to work at first, as Bouchard's body language, attitude and level all drooped significantly in the second set. Most of that was because her serve abandoned her as Williams stepped up the pressure on the return.

The first-serve percentage dropped significantly, and after winning 50 per cent of points on her second serve in the first set, she won just 23 per cent in the second.

The sun was an issue. So was the contrast from one side of the court to the other, with the wind blowing resolutely in one direction. But those issues were present throughout the match; it was only in the second set that the elements had their way with Bouchard.

This time, Saviano's pep talk took on a different tone. "You've gotta enjoy being out there, enjoy competing. You've gotten a little passive," he said.

Then, he took off his ever-present sunglasses, stared Bouchard right in the eyes.

When Williams broke Bouchard to lead 2-1 in the third, it didn't appear that fight would show up. But then, a cheeky backhand drop shot – Bouchard's first of the match, landed in. And suddenly Bouchard broke back to even things at 2-2.

From then, both served well. Bouchard, in particular, lifted her serve back to its first-set level of effectiveness – perhaps even better. Suddenly, Williams was at 4-5, serving to stay in the match. And she couldn't do it.

Williams let Bouchard off the hook numerous times, including in that final game, and said later that she felt her endurance was lacking, and that she'd made a lot of errors.

Afterwards, she told the media in Charleston:

Half the battle in tennis is hanging in there. And after a lull in the middle of the match, that's exactly what Bouchard did. She pulled herself together, and started competing again.

As well, she was effective when it mattered most. The Resultina app, which tracks a stat called "big-point index", had Bouchard at plus-30 for the match. The "plus" comes from the difference in percentage between a player's effectiveness on serve and return points overall, and their effectiveness on break points for and against them. At plus-20, a player usually wins a match. At plus-30, they almost never loses, said Jiri Fenci, a WTA Tour coach who helped develop the app.

Bouchard was just 4-of-9 in saving break points against her own serve. But she went 4-for-5 in converting break points against Williams' serve.

She will now face the winner between No. 2 seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, and Ajla Tomljanovic of Croatia, a big-serving fellow 20-year-old (nine months older than Bouchard) who trains out of the Chris Evert academy in Florida. The match will once again be not before 1 p.m., on Friday.

Bouchard isn't the only Montrealer to go up against a former Grand Slam champion and No. 1-ranked player Thursday.

Down in Monterrey, Mexico, Aleksandra Wozniak played Ana Ivanovic in a second-round night match. Wozniak, who won three matches in qualifying to reach the main draw, defeated a Mexican wild card in the first round. But Ivanovic took her down 6-4, 6-2.