Montreal’s Bouchard Advances

Any time you can play on home soil means more pressure on the athlete, but for some it’s time for them to excel and take their game to a new level.

Such is the case for 22 year-old Montreal born Eugenie Bouchard as she took on Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic and won by scores of 6-3,3-6 and 7-6.

The win will either see her face Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova or Mariana Duque-Marino who calls Columbia home when not touring the circuit.

Bouchard is ranked 42^nd while Safarova is ranked 28^th, who managed to battle back winning the second set, forcing the third and final set.

Bouchard started strong taking a 6-4 lead, but eventually let Safarova get three points forcing a tie-breaker.

Bouchard fell behind by a 3-1 score in the tie-breaker, but somehow managed to pull off a win by earning the next six points.

Last week Bouchard lost in the first round at Washington’s Citi Open, but prior to this loss she advanced to the round of 32 players in Wimbledon, but eventually dropped to Cibulkova who is ranked 18^th.

With this being the final event prior to Rio, Bouchard is focused on entering the Olympics on a strong note as she will compete in both the singles and doubles in Rio 2016.

Bouchard’s partner in Rio will be Gabriela Dabrowski, whose success is that of a doubles player.

In May of 2015 she won her first (ever) WTA Doubles Title.

For more up to date info on Canadian Athlete’s please visit: http://olympic.ca/