WHAT HAPPENED: The standing-room crowd that jammed Court 5 during Monday's first-round encounter between No. 12 seed Anastasija Sevastova and Eugenie Bouchard indicated their sentimental favorite with chants of “Here we go, Genie!” and enthusiastic applause whenever the Canadian demonstrated flashes of the form that took her to No. 5 in the world in 2014.
However, Sevastova earned the fans' respect as well as the win as she ultimately overpowered and outmaneuvered No. 119 Bouchard, 6-3, 6-3.
The Latvian raced to a 4-0 lead before Bouchard’s deftly angled volley and a smattering of her own unforced errors allowed Bouchard onto the scoreboard. Bouchard then held serve and pushed Sevastova to deuce in the seventh game, but was left shaking her head in frustration at her opponent’s subsequent passing shot and service winner. Sevastova closed out the set easily on serve, and continued to ride the momentum.
After falling behind 1-3 in the second set, the crowd's encouragement seemed to energize Bouchard who held to 2-3 with an overhead winner. Sevastova then dazzled with her variety, however, lacing an approach winner up the line, blasting a forehand, delicately scooping Bouchard's drop shot reply and rocketing a 91-mile-per-hour ace to seal the next game—and soon enough, the match.
In all, Sevastova domininated all the relevant stat boxes, including a favorable 23 to 16 ratio of winners to unforced errors, compared to Bouchard's 15 winners erased by 27 unforced errors.
WHAT IT MEANS: Sevastova is returning to the site of her greatest Grand Slam success, having reached the semifinal last year and the quaterfinal in 2016 and 2017, for a 15-6 record. With this win, she improves to 12-8 in first-round matches and 10-9 on hard courts this season. While Sevastova has lost to three players outside the Top 100 in 2019 (Timea Bacsinszky, Patricia Maria Tig and Svetlana Kuznetsova), her last such loss at a Grand Slam tournament occurred at the 2018 Roland Garros when she was unceremoniously toppled by Mariana Duque-Marino.
Bouchard was making her seventh consecutive main draw appearance at the 2019 US Open, with her best results coming in back-to-back Round of 16 showings in 2014 and 2015 (when she bowed to Ekaterina Makarova and Roberta Vinci, respectively). She entered New York looking to snap a 10-match losing streak dating back to Dubai, but this loss drops Bouchard to 4-11 in first-round matches this season and 6-11 on hard courts. The US Open is the third Grand Slam of the year in which Bouchard exited in the first round, along with Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
MATCH POINT: Sevastova, 29, is enjoying her second tennis career. She retired in May 2013, due to back and muscular injuries, and returned to competition in January 2015.
