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For the first time since March, Eugenie Bouchard has put together back-to-back wins and is in the US Open third round

Stephanie Myles
For the first time since March, Eugenie Bouchard has put together back-to-back wins and is in the US Open third round

NEW YORK – Happy 63rd birthday, Jimmy Connors. Your new protégée came up with a pretty good gift.

That would be Genie Bouchard, who managed to overcome a second set collapse Wednesday at the US Open and prevail 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-3 over Polona Hercog of Slovenia.

“The way I kept my nerve at the end of the third. This year I've had a couple matches where it's been tough to close out. I just tried to block that out of my mind, block the outcome as well out of my mind, you know, and just keep playing tennis. Keep trying to play good tennis,” Bouchard said. “Got tough there at the end, so I'm proud of that.”

Here's how it looked.

Hercog is a tall, rangy athlete with a big serve and a tricky slice backhand who in the end, just wasn’t consistent enough, and perhaps didn’t have enough belief.

Bouchard was down a break early in each of the first two sets, but came roaring back and for the second consecutive match, showed some of the fire and dogged defence that characterized her best efforts of a year ago.

But when it came time to close it out, the 21-year-old Canadian faltered.

Hercog suddenly cleaned up her act and began pushing back at just the right moment, putting up some resistance that brought out some of Bouchard’s 2015 nerves.

“I was serving at 4-3 and 5-4 in the second. Just felt like I wasn't doing the right things. You know, I think I was a little too hesitant in those games. Yeah, I mean, she was playing solid and making me really work for it,” Bouchard said. “I tried to put more pressure because I felt like that's when I did the best. Try to attack her backhand a bit more, put more pressure on the second serve, but I think in general I actually returned well on the first and second.”

Unlike some of the previous 2015 disasters, Bouchard came back from a comfort break with determination, sprinting out to a 4-0 lead in the third set before finally closing it out.

There were a lot of looks of frustration and despair at her family and support team. But none of that frustration seemed to linger for long.

Bouchard handled Hercog’s slice a lot better than she did the one she saw from Roberta Vinci in that 6-1, 6-0 drubbing in New Haven just a week ago.

The demeanour overall is a little different this week; the shots are aggressive, the errors are fewer and further between and the trips to the net more frequent.

“Yeah, I don't know where that came from. I was trying to, you know, finish off the points at the net. My opponent today was standing really far back, so I felt like I had to mix things up and change it up because it was quite different actually than most opponents I've played,” she said.

As Connors sat down for a birthday dinner with his family out in Santa Barbara, Calif., he could almost start believing that when he returns to New York Sunday, his charge might still actually be in this thing.

It seems as though he liked it.

This tantalizing possibility was nigh on unthinkable a month ago.

Even a week ago.

And, as it happens, Bouchard’s section of the draw has opened up as it so often did in her stellar 2014 Grand Slam season.

This is the first time the Canadian has put together back-to-back victories since … Indian Wells, back in March, when she defeated Lucie Hradecka and Coco Vandeweghe before falling to qualifier Lesia Tsurenko of Russia.

That was a tough loss in so many ways; it signalled the start of the abdominal issues that cropped up against just before Wimbledon and, in a practical sense, the start of her crisis of both tennis and confidence.

Next up on Friday will be the unseeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, a former top-10 player who was out all spring with a major Achilles problem and is just starting to make her way back.

Bouchard’s opponent on paper was to be No. 7 seed Ana Ivanovic. But Cibulkova took care of her on Monday to open the tournament on Arthur Ashe Stadium.