The former Roland Garros champion will be the top seed at the Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca this week.
On Saturday afternoon at the Transylvania Open being held at the BT Arena in downtown Cluj, the main draw was conducted by the tournament director, WTA supervisor, and Genie Bouchard.
The Canadian was scheduled to play qualifying thanks to a wild card from the tournament but decided, in the end, to promote her to the main draw so another Romanian Briana Szabo could enter the tournament.
“We are thrilled to be able to host an event with people in the stands after last year where we had a lot of tough conditions with Covid and the masks and with no people and we have a very strong draw this year.”
That was Patrick Ciorcella who is the tournament director and one of the youngest on tour.
“We have a 10-time champion Barbora Krejcikova our number one seed as well as a lot of Romanians in the draw and fortunately they are not playing each other in the first round so hopefully they can all advance.”
Eugenie Bouchard was also in attendance and actually helped make the draw and Ciorcella thinks having her is a great addition to the tournament.
“We have Eugenie Bouchard who I think is our biggest star of the tournament and we are expecting a lot of great matches.”
Bouchard spoke about her experience so far in Romania and she thinks the tournament is one of the best on tour.
“It is my first time in Romania so my coach and I spent some time visiting the town, it is so beautiful and we have enjoyed our time so far and we also think the tournament is really well done.”
She went on to add “we can not believe it is only a 250 and we think it should be a 1000 and they take care of the players so well and the hotel is across the street which is great for efficiency and I am so excited to be here and play and Patrick has done a great job”.
The first round features some great matches as Krejcikova is at the top of the draw while the number two seed Anhelina Kalinina will face Bouchard in her first match.
The Czech will begin her tournament playing against the Hungarian Dalma Galfi.
Bouchard was asked about how she came to the decision of coming to Romania and she mentioned it was already planned a while back.
“The plan was always to do this European swing and I was in Ostrava last week and getting a wild card into the main draw is a huge motivation to come and play and I want to play as much as I can before the season is over.”
The main draw begins on Monday starting at 11:00 am local time.
