Bouchard in the spotlight as Muguruza withdraws

Homegrown hero Eugenie Bouchard reached the second round of the WTA hardcourt tournament in Montreal with a dramatic three-set victory on Tuesday, lending a little star-power as the event lost French Open champion Garbine Muguruza.
 In her past two appearances at her home event, Bouchard had failed to win a match. But this time she gave fans what they wanted to see with a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7/3) victory over Czech Lucie Safarova.
 After dominating the first set, she made a sluggish start to the second and Safarova took advantage to force a third frame. Bouchard was unable to convert three match points at 6-5 in the third, but after Safarova forced the tiebreaker the Canadian roared back from a 3-1 deficit to seize the victory.
 “The crowd was incredible,” said Bouchard, who begged off a longer post-match press conference pleading a stomach ache. That was after Spain’s Muguruza, the world number three and third seed, pulled out of her opening match complaining of gastrointestinal illness minutes before she was to take on Britain’s Naomi Broady.
 It was another high-profile defection after world number one Serena Williams withdrew with inflammation in her shoulder over the weekend.
 “I’m pretty disappointed, I practised a lot for this tournament,” Muguruza said. “Since yesterday, I have kind of been feeling weird and I spoke with the doctor and everything. I thought today I was going to feel better, but in the last moment I didn’t feel good enough to go on court and give my best.”
 Although it was a second-round match, Muguruza enjoyed a first-round bye. Organizers filled her place in the draw with lucky loser Varvara Lepchenko of the United States, who defeated Broady 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
 In the only other second-round match of the day, fifth-seeded Romanian Simona Halep defeated Australian Daria Gavrilova 6-2, 6-3.
 Halep and Gavrilova had split their last two meetings. But Halep,
coming off her second title of the
season at home in Bucharest, was in control throughout, never facing a break point in the first set and shaking off an early tremor in the second to win in 86 minutes. “She’s a very strong player,” Halep, a former French Open champion, said. “I played her on the clay courts in Rome, she beat me there, and I knew how to play today.”
 Canadian Francoise Abanda also made it through to the second round, downing China’s Zheng Saisai 6-1, 7-5 in a match held over from Monday because of lengthy rain delays.
After the match, Zheng took to Twitter to express displeasure with the stringing of her racquets.
 “I would like to congratulate Francoise on the victory well done this evening,” wrote Zheng, a quarter-finalist at Stanford last week.
“And taking nothing to take away from her, I would also like to mention the lack of professionalism for the stringing service at Coup Rogers.”
 Zheng said both of her racquets had been mistakenly strung with 10 pounds lighter tension than she had requested.
 Britain’s Johanna Konta, less than 48 hours removed from lifting her first WTA title with an upset of Venus Williams in Stanford on Sunday, reached the second round with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over American Shelby Rogers.
 Konta, who moved up from 18th to 14th in the world on the strength of her Stanford run and is now knocking on the door of the top 10. Only three other British players—Virginia Wade, Sue Barker and Joe Durie—have made the top 10.

Montreal organisers mull show-court roof
Rain that played havoc with Monday’s programme at the Montreal WTA hardcourt tournament has officials dreaming of a roof for an ageing baseball facility which was re-purposed decades ago for tennis.
 Tournament director Eugene Lapierre can only wish for a modern, moveable covering for his event. “We are putting on a show. If we want people to be there and watch, it’s better to plan the match for the next day,” he said.
 “Before trying to fund the (roof) project, we need to have the agreement of the city, and we are working on this project. There’s still a lot to be done before we can go ahead. We have no dates for the time being. This is just a project for the time being,” he added.
 The Montreal project will hopefully not mimic the current political stalemate as Roland Garros tries to expand its ground and add a roof to the Chatrier court. That initiative is now bogged down in court cases and protests from nearby residents with 2020 now a target date for possible completion.
 Lapierre said that plans for a roof in Montreal, which hosts a men’s ATP Masters in alternate years in a rotation with Toronto, are a long way from reality. “We don’t have a price, but if we decide to go ahead with this project, the first thing we want to do is have it approved by our neighbours here in this neighbourhood, the people from Montreal. This is a community park. We are occupying a lot of space in this park and we have an impact on the neighbourhood, so we need to talk to them first.”
 But Lapierre said he thought it wouldn’t be too long before most tour events would follow the example of the Grand Slams in ensuring continuity of play by installing roofs over show courts.
“My impression is that within 15 years, most tournaments will have a roof. Australian Open, Wimbledon, the US Open have a roof. The French Open is trying to have a roof.
“They’ll have it in two years maybe. Madrid has one for the Masters. I was speaking with the Italians this week who were saying they might have a roof maybe in Rome soon. It’s worthwhile for us to try to remain among the top tournaments in the world.”