Eugenie Bouchard wins first match of grass-court season over Danka Kovinic at the Mallorca Open

Coach Nick Saviano arrived for the grass-court season a week earlier than planned. And perhaps his presence helped Genie Bouchard notch her first win of the pre-Wimbledon campaign, a 6-3, 7-5 victory Tuesday over 21-year-old Danka Kovinic of Montenegro at the inaugural Mallorca Open.

It wasn’t especially pretty, but it didn’t need to be and the Canadian was the more consistent of the two on the day. She will meet Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia in the second round.

Kovinic’s experience on grass is extremely limited, and her playing schedule indicates she much prefers the red clay. She played two matches on it as a 15-year-old junior, losing both, and has only a two victories in the qualifying to show for her first two visits to Wimbledon.

She only had a couple of good patches of play in the match. The first came in the middle of the first set, but she began the set with a slew of errors and ended it the same way, so Bouchard was surprisingly untroubled despite failing to convert on 1-of-5 break points. The Canadian won 10 of 12 second-serve points, which is a crazy-high number by any standard.

Bouchard had six aces and faced just one break point on her serve during the entire match; Kovinic had seven double-faults and saved eight of 11 break points; the two she failed to save after going up 5-2 in the second set were the difference.

In the second set, after her coach suggested that Kovinic slice more and vary the pace a bit (which she did, occasionally), the Montenegrin jumped out to a 5-2 lead even though Bouchard had plenty of opportunities to get back into it.

But after holding her serve to make it 3-5, Bouchard turned her back to the court to gather her thoughts a little and when she turned back around, there was a completely different look on her face.

Suddenly, where she had been reacting to and flailing at balls, she looked dogged and determined to make every one and have her opponent be the one making the errors.

Perhaps that increased presence on the other side of the net was enough, as Kovinic thoughtfully obliged.

With the help of a lucky let cord, Bouchard broke back to get on serve, held easily, broke again, and served out the match with an ace right down the T.

After the 6-2, 6-0 thumping at the hands of Belgian qualifier Elise Mertens in her grass-court opener in the Netherlands last week, it was an encouraging performance even though other than some very good numbers on serve, it wasn’t an especially accomplished one.

But tennis on grass has an element of luck to it. The court will often dictate the outcome of points and if those come at crucial times, there’s not much the player can do. Once Bouchard stopped giving away free points, she allowed her less-experienced opponent to donate a few.

The atmosphere wasn’t conducive to lighting it up. There might have been 100 fans on hand in the cozy new centre court in Mallorca for the 11 a.m. start, as the two opened proceedings. Saviano, who has trouble sitting for long periods of time anyway, found himself on an uncomfortable white plastic chair with the other option close to the court being to sit on the rock-hard stone steps. He writhed and crossed and uncrossed his legs, trying to find some sort of comfortable position. Bouchard never called upon him for a coaching consult during the match but his presence alone may well have had a calming effect, as it so often has.

Sevastova, now 26, reached the top 40 and then retired for a couple of years as she struggled to stay healthy. She returned at the beginning of 2015 and is back in the top 100, and presents a bit of a different challenge as she has a bigger variety of weapons.

But her first-round win Sunday against Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland was the first main-draw WTA Tour victory of Sevastova’s career on grass – a surface she hadn’t played on for five years before returning to it last week. So that has to be considered a very favourable draw for Bouchard, who must now take advantage.

The two played on a hard court in Doha last February, with Bouchard prevailing in a third-set tiebreak.