Eugenie Bouchard found herself on a roll at the Apia International Tuesday. Her 6-4, 6-3 win over Dominika Cibulkova on Court 1 advanced her into the quarterfinals at Sydney Olympic Tennis Park.
The rivalry between the two has been recent and lively. Since the start of 2015, the Canadian started off her series with Cibulkova in stunning fashion winning a thrilling three setter. Since then, things have gone quicker with both ladies winning matches in straight sets. Bouchard currently holds the lead 3-1 but would definitely have a challenge on her hands to start the second round of the tournament. Cibulkova earned a solid win over Laura Siegemund in the opening round winning 6-0, 6-2. With the great start, the Slovakian would more than push for another win against Bouchard.
The two held serve to start the set with the Slovakian seeing an early challenge. She watched Bouchard reach deuce and make her earn the win. It took two breaks but Cibulkova managed to hold things together. She earned a break pouncing on the troubled shots from Bouchard. Her wild shots were handled easily by Cibulkova to take a 2-1 lead. The tide changed again with the Slovakian racking up the unforced errors to put Bouchard on the break point. She couldn’t stop the problems handing the Canadian the tying win.
They went back to hold of service with Bouchard leading the way to start the fifth. Cibulkova answered for herself in the sixth but didn’t want to play on the pace of her Canadian rival. As a response, she pressed hard in the seventh regaining the lead before both players took conferences with their coaches.
The advice that Bouchard received from Thomas Högstedt paid off huge for the 22 year old as she broke Cibulkova in the eighth that led to another level pegging. The leverage she gained on the win allowed her to dictate perfect on serve in the ninth. The lead change put her in a spot to take the set if her game remained tight. She had two set points but lost them all giving Cibulkova the chance to still hang on to serve. She blew it on a rally where her return landed long giving Bouchard the 6-4 decision after 52 minutes.
The second set began with Bouchard increasing her winning streak in consolidation of the first set. She couldn’t grow it any further watching Cibulkova nail down her service in the second game. It was the last she’d see for a while as the Canadian rallied to a pair of victories that had her on a pace not able to be caught by the Slovakian. She somehow fought for a break in the fifth and got it with tremendous push from her end.
Despite being denied another winning streak, Bouchard got her revenge in the sixth scoring a break from Cibulkova that inched her closer to the match. The Canadian had things in control starting the seventh with a very quick ace down the middle. She couldn’t keep the lead as Cibulkova dragged her back into a deuce draw. A big serve gave her the advantage where she immediately fired a hard shot that came back long.
Bouchard played for the match on her opponent’s service but couldn’t lock down the break as the Slovakian had some fight left in her. It was up to the 22 year old to keep things together and get the win on her terms. She dominated the game earning three match points where a five shot rally ended with Cibulkova redirecting it away on the return. On the second match point attempt. She sealed her quarterfinal spot with a line drive to the right of her opponent ending the match in success. Bouchard celebrated immensely after 99 minutes of action, a second straight win over Cibulkova and fourth overall.
While the celebration will be light off court, she won’t have time to take it to light as her next opponent would be Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Wednesday.
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