Bouchard gets first Madrid main draw win in six years

Canadian defeats Ukrainian 6-7 (6/8), 6-2, 6-2 to advance into second round of clay-court tournament

MADRID:

Former Wimbledon runner-up Eugenie Bouchard claimed her first Madrid Open main draw win in six years on Wednesday with a three-set victory over Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska.

Bouchard, a former world number five whose ranking has slumped to 285, battled back to claim a 6-7 (6/8), 6-2, 6-2 win over her fellow qualifier.

The 29-year-old Canadian made her first and only Grand Slam final at Wimbledon in 2014, the same year she was also a semi-finalist at the Australian and French Opens.

However, a series of injury setbacks -- the latest of which was a shoulder injury which sidelined her for 17 months in 2021 and 2022 -- sent her career into freefall.

Wednesday's outing was just her third WTA main draw match of 2023 having played two rounds in Bogota earlier in April.

"It's like restarting at zero," said Bouchard on Tuesday after coming through two rounds of qualifying in Madrid.

She will next face Italy's world number 20 Martina Trevisan for a spot in the third round of the tournament.

Bouchard reached the quarter-finals in the Spanish capital in 2017, famously defeating Maria Sharapova in a tense second-round clash on her way to the quarter-finals.