By Chris Oddo | Wednesday, April 8, 2015
21-year-old American Lauren Davis raced past Canada's Eugenie Bouchard in straight sets for her second Top 10 win.
Photo Source: @Tennis_Shots
The women’s singles draw at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston is now devoid of its top two seeds after top-seeded Eugenie Bouchard was rocked by American sparkplug Lauren Davis and second-seeded Ekaterina Makarova was forced to withdraw after her second-round win due to illness.
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The early chaos at this green clay event could present a nice opportunity for 20-year-old American Madison Keys, who is now the highest-seeded player in her section of the draw.
Bouchard’s struggles continue in full as the Canadian never found her game against Davis, committing a bevy of impatient errors in a 6-3, 6-1 loss that highlights just how far she has fallen from the scintillating form that saw her reach three straight semifinals at majors in 2014, including the Wimbledon final.
"I mean I obviously hate losing but I'm not going to be too hard on myself," Bouchard said. "I know I've been not feeling like myself on the court, so just a matter of taking time now, you know, not playing a tournament and taking some time to just train and get back to feeling like myself on the court."
The Canadian reached the quarterfinals at the year’s first major, but she has since dropped four of six matches.
The victory was Davis’s second against a top ten opponent, and she displayed impressive quickness and some pop in easily moving past Bouchard. The 21-year-old stroked 18 winners against only five unforced errors, while Bouchard threw in 33 unforced errors to help Davis’s cause.
"I knew to beat her I'd have to be fearless,” Davis said after the match. “I saw this as a great opportunity.”
Sloane Stephens also met her match on Wednesday, falling to Germany’s 15th-seeded Mona Barthel, 6-3, 7-6(2). Stephens rallied from 5-3 down in the second set, saving two match points from 15-40, and eventually took a 6-5 lead. But Barthel, after a word with her coach, forced the tiebreaker and took the play to Stephens to close out the match in straight sets.
So it will be Barthel and Davis—not Stephens and Bouchard as expected—to meet in the third round at Charleston.
Elsewhere on a busy Wednesday in Charleston, 4th-seeded Sara Errani made her way into the third round with a 6-3, 7-6(5) victory over last year’s runner-up Jana Cepelova, while qualifier Danka Kovinic upset 12th-seeded Belinda Bencic, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.