Eugenie Bouchard, 23, seems to have lost any trace of success while on the tennis court. The former 2014 Wimbledon runner-up and top 5 presence, she is now on the verge of being edged out of the top 100. Currently ranked 78th in the world, she was given a wild-card entry for the WTA International event in Hong Kong. It was her second presence during the Asian leg after losing last week in Beijing opener to Magdalena Rybarikova. Once a WTA rising superstar, Bouchard can now barely pose a threat to a decent player. The downward spiral she has been through over the past two years seems to haven't reached the bottom yet.
Caroline Wozniacki cruised past Bouchard in two blistering sets
Caroline Wozniacki, 27, has put her grip on that elusive first WTA title of 2017 a few weeks ago after winning the Premier event in Tokyo. Succeeding at her seventh attempt this year, Wozniacki also secured her spot for the WTA Finals in Singapore. The Dane will push for another title this week in Hong Kong, and things are looking just great. She stunningly got past Eugenie Bouchard 6-1 6-1. Entering the match, The Canadian was leading by 1-0 in head to head stats having won their only previous meeting (2014 in Wuhan).
Wozniacki shares the upper half of the draw with the current world No. 4 Elina Svitolina whom she may face in the semis.
But, there is a lot of work up to that point. Moreover, Wozniacki is the defending champion of the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open. She will face Lizette Cabrera (155 WTA) next while Daria Gavrilova, the seventh seed, looms for the quarterfinals. If she makes it to the final, Wozniacki (6 WTA) may bump into players like Agnieszka Radwanska, Venus Williams or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
All these are sharing the second part of what seems to be a tough draw given the low-profile feature of the event.
Eugenie Bouchard still has time to recover
Back in 2014, the Canadian was widely seen as a future ruler of the game. She is now in a messy spot, but there might be a silver lining attached to it. For example, Caroline Wozniacki used to be in a same awful spot back in 2017 as her ranking dropped to the 70th spot.
A solid run at the 2016 US Open ( she reached the semis) propelled her back in the game. The current season saw her scrambling to reach her peak once more. Thus, she made it into seven WTA finals winning one of them in Tokyo. Maybe that's what Bouchard needs; a solid run at a big WTA event. And the best opportunity is only a few months ahead with the 2018 Australian Open already looming on the horizon.
