Former Wimbledon runner-up Eugenie Bouchard has been knocked out of the opening round of the Hobart International, a key warm-up event for next week’s Australian Open in Melbourne.
Bouchard had a fairytale year in 2014, reaching back-to-back semifinals at the Australian and French Open and then getting through to her maiden Grand Slam final at Wimbledon, where she lost to Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in straight sets.
However, since the beginning of 2015, she has been awfully out of form and has struggled to even progress beyond the initial few rounds of the tournaments she has competed in. Her poor form came to haunt her in 2018 as well as she was comfortably beaten by Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in the first round of the Hobart International.
The Belarusian teenager was at her very best right from the word go and never allowed the Canadian to settle down in any sort of rhythm whatsoever. World No. 69 Sabalenka continued to strike the ball with great pace and incredible depth, frustrating the former World No. 5 with her aggressive style of play.
Bouchard, now ranked as low as 83 in the world rankings, had no answer to Sabalenka’s barrage of heavy ground-strokes before eventually going down 4-6, 3-6 in what turned out to be a one-sided affair.
Eugenie had arrived in Hobart, hoping to gain some confidence after losing all three of her matches at the Hopman Cup in Perth. But, it was not to be as her poor form played spoilsport to her plans.
