Timea Bacsinszky recovered from a duo of scares to defeat Eugenie Bouchard 6-4, 6-4, in the second round of the French Open.
The eighth seed looked in danger of dropping the opening set as Bouchard started off the stronger on the court. The Canadian won three consecutive games on her way to a 4-1 lead in the first set. The early promise shown by Bouchard, was swiftly destroyed by an outstanding performance from Bacsinszky, who won six straight games to seal the set.
Many expected the second round match to be a close encounter between the two after their meeting earlier in the season. At the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, the Swiss player took the match in three sets. The start of the second set failed to live up to those expectations as Bacsinszky extended her winning game streak to ten and take a commanding lead of 6-4, 5-0.
Bacsinszky, who reached the semifinals in Roland Garros last year, was on the verge of sealing the win before some late resistance from her opponent. Bouchard retrieved one of the breaks to reignite her hopes in the match. The unexpected comeback gained momentum with the Canadian converting her fifth break point in the game to narrow the gap to 5-3. Bacsinszky faced the prospect of the set going 5-5 after trailing 15-40 in her service game before battling back to deuce. The comeback from Bouchard was finally ended after back-to-back unforced errors from the Canadian rewarded the eighth seed a place in the third round.
It was a far from faultless performance from the world No.9, who produced 23 unforced errors alongside her 22 winners. The win takes the 26-year-old to only her second French Open third round.
In other early matches on Thursday, Carla Suarez Navarro continued her love affair with Roland Garros by crushing China’s Wang Qiang 6-1, 6-3, in just 66 minutes. The Spaniard has reached the quarterfinals of the tournament on two previous occasions (2008 and 2014).
Ana Ivanovic overcame a tough opening set to see off Kurumi Nara 7-5, 6-1. It is the first time that Ivanovic has won back-to-back matches at a tournament since the Dubai Tennis Championships last February.
Meanwhile, the first seed to exit the tournament on Thursday was Andrea Petkovic (28). The German crashed out to Yania Putintseva 6-2, 6-2. In the last 32 Putintseva will play Italy’s Karin Knapp, who defeated Anastasija Sevastova 6-3, 6-4.
