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Genie Bouchard's improbable US Open run continues with a third-round win over Dominika Cibulkova
NEW YORK – Genie Bouchard and Dominika Cibulkova, both former top-10 players, had suffered an abject lack of match play this season for very different reasons.
So it’s no surprise both seized their moments, at times, during their third-round match Friday. And it’s no surprise that both flinched at times.
In the end, after a two-hour, 48-minute tug of war on a warm day, Bouchard came out the winner of a 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 match that puts her into the fourth round of the US Open.
That’s where the 21-year-old Canadian’s US Open ended a year ago, as she wilted in the heat on Labour Day against Ekaterina Makarova. But while that effort might have been a disappointment, this one is a more than pleasant surprise.
“It was just such a battle. I knew going in that she was going to be like that. She really put a lot of pressure on me actually. She was really going for her shots and swinging. A lot of times I couldn't, you know, dominate the way I wanted to,” Bouchard said. “I just stayed in there. In the third I tried to stay calm. I told myself that I don't have energy to spare on being negative.”
Both the 21-year-old Canadian and Cibulkova, a 26-year-old undersized bundle of dynamite from Slovakia who missed all of the spring and early summer after surgery on her Achilles tendon, were effective at the net and indeed, moved forward fairly often.
Both struggled to convert break points; they each broke four times, but they had a combined 27 opportunities.
Bouchard had far more chances, and it appeared she would win in straight sets after coming back from a love-40 deficit early in the second set to lead 3-1. Then, two consecutive breaks by Cibulkova and in a flash, a disgusted Bouchard was into a decider.
She was in trouble early. “I got broken in the first game. I really just told myself to stay calm and to be a bit more aggressive. I think I had to put more pressure on her 'cause she was really striking the ball so I was, you know, having to defend a little bit,” Bouchard said.
But with the renewed resilience and fight she seems to have found in New York – at least through her first three matches – she went on a roll after that.
Key stat of the third set? The Canadian won six of seven points on her second serve. The serve was a weapon throughout, and when the level of her attack on Cibulkova’s serve caught up, the combination finally paid dividends.
“Day by day I'm feeling a tiny bit better. That's a great thing, to be able to improve a little bit every single day or every match. Yeah, I mean, I felt like I could hit some great balls there. The times when I wasn't playing so well, I think she played well. I was just on my back foot a little bit. That's because of
the pressure she put on me, as well,” Bouchard said. “Continuing to believe, putting my head down, working hard, trying just to regain that confidence, that belief.
“It's not like a magical word or something you can just do overnight. I've been trying the whole year to play well. Just doesn't always happen. So I'm glad, though, that I seem to have found more of my rhythm,” she added.
After the singles match, during her on-court interview, Bouchard invited the very large crowd to head over to Court 17 in a couple of hours to watch her mixed doubles debut with fellow Nike player, the Aussie Nick Kyrgios.
As promised, about 90 minutes later, Bouchard was true to her word and in a match where a lighthearted Kyrgios entertained the crowd and Bouchard just laughed, and laughed – and played some good tennis – the pair defeated Elina Svitolina and Artem Sitak 5-7, 6-3, [10-3] to advance to what could be an on-court lesson against doubles legends Martina Hingis and Leander Paes Saturday.
She is the only female player remaining who is still in singles, women’s doubles and mixed – Donald Young of the U.S. is doing the same on the men’s side. And it’s Murphy’s Law that the very fact that she signed up for all three, to at least ensure she would get some matches in the case of a not-so-unlikely early exit in singles, she now has to juggle them all.
Bouchard will have little time to recover; she and women’s doubles partner Elena Vesnina play their second-round match against the No. 6 seeds, Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears, and later on will meet Hingis and Paes in mixed. So far, there has been no sign Bouchard will pull out of any of the events, and the weather is supposed to get cooler – finally.
She’s waited this long, this season, to play as much tennis as she can handle. Might as well make the most of it.
