Bouchard Wins 1st Match Despite Injury at Roland Garros

Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard has had a tough season so far losing 10 out of the 21 matches she has played so far. Out of those 10 losses, 6 of them happened during the opening round and it looked like Bouchard might be out during the first round at Roland Garros after she lost 5 games in a row to her Japanese opponent Risa Ozaki.

To make matters worse for the 23 year old Bouchard she appeared to be battling an ankle injury and it looked like Ozaki would run away with the match after she won the first set 2-6. However Bouchard managed to stage a magnificent comeback injury and all to win 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, giving her a second victory over Ozaki. Bouchard will now face Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova in the second round and will be prepared for a fight with Sevastova who is the 17 th seed at Roland Garros.

Bouchard had done well at Roland Garros before making it to the semi-finals of the 2014 French Open and was once ranked in the top 5. However she suffered injuries both physical and mental during the last couple of years which has caused her form to dip and her ranking to drop significantly. Bouchard is now ranked 57 in the world but her experience of doing well at the French Open will serve her in good stead when she takes on Sevastova.

The two players have met twice before and each of them have one win. In a statement, Bouchard said

I've learned to take everything in stride a little bit: not get too high with the ups and not get too down with the lows. Just keep going. Failure is just a reason to find something new, to learn something new. You just have to get back up every time.

Bouchard who is from Quebec injured her ankle earlier this month when she was training for the Nuremberg Cup. She decided to pull out of the tournament in an effort to recover and take a shot at winning the 2017 French Open. Her ankle appears to be still causing her some level of discomfort but the fact that she is willing to put it all on the line, shows how badly she wants to do well at Rolland Garros. Bouchard and Sevastova have never played on clay before and this might give the Canadian a slight edge over the 17th seed.