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After frazzled week of practice, Eugenie Bouchard rolls in her first Indian Wells match

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – There were tears during Genie Bouchard's practices this week, and a lot of intense tête-à-têtes with coach Nick Saviano.

But in the end, if a frazzled week of dress rehearsals ends up turning into a boffo performance on opening night, it might all be worth it.

From this ...

... to this ...

...in about 63 minutes and 30 seconds, the time it took to dismantle a quality player and move into the third round at the BNP Paribas Open.

The player was Shuai Peng of China, currently ranked No. 40 but once as high as No. 11 in singles, and right now the new No. 1 doubles player in the world.

Bouchard, the No. 18 seed, dismissed Peng 6-2, 6-2, playing aggressively and consistently and serving particularly well.

So whatever angst there may have been – and there certainly seemed to be a whole lot of angst – was filed away somewhere at least as long as it took to get her BNP Paribas Open campaign off to a rousing start.

Bouchard, who as a seeded player received a first-round bye, broke Peng to start the match with three winners on service returns. "That was my goal, to be aggressive, and I knew I could do it on her serve, as well. I wanted to do it right from the beginning, so I think I got my message of being aggressive across," said Bouchard, who got the main interview room treatment after her win that Romanian Simona Halep, the world No. 7 who already has seven tournament titles to her name, did not rate.

The next challenge is No. 9 seed Sara Errani of Italy, who dispatched Bouchard's Fed Cup teammate Sharon Fichman 6-1, 6-1 earlier in the day.

The match was – to coin a phrase – rather closer than that score indicated. But Fichman, hobbled to some extent by a hip and left upper leg issue, found that her vastly more experienced opponent had answers for every question she asked.

"She's a consistent top-10 player, very, very solid. She really likes getting balls back. I know she can probably hit some good angles, too. Puts a lot of spin on the ball" Bouchard said of Errani. "I'm going to try to take it early – that's really my game – but be ready to battle as well.

"I think it will be a different match from today, so I'm going to expect that and just keep trying to be aggressive, especially on the return."

Fichman found out after her singles match that she had made it into the doubles draw, after the withdrawal of the team of Nadia Petrova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. She and American Megan Moulton-Levy – at least an inch shorter than Fichman, which is no mean feat – battled hard against the much taller and far more experienced pair of Abigail Spears and Raquel Kops-Jones.

They even served for the first set, but ultimately went down 7-6 (4), 6-2.