After straight set losses in their first matches of the red group, Eugenie Bouchard and Ana Ivanovic face off in a crucial match as they bid to keep their hopes alive of qualifying for the semi-finals in Singapore. Ivanovic lost to Serena Williams, 6-4 6-4 in an entertaining first match. Ivanovic recovered from 1-4 down in the first set and even had a break point at 4-4, which would have seen her serve for the first set. Ivanovic pushed a volley just long and after that, Serena slammed the door shut with some big shots and even bigger screams of come on. Ivanovic played well, but was let down on serve and by an even more wayward ball toss than normal. She faltered both times with scoreboard pressure at *4-5 in both sets. You can read a full comprehensive recap of the Serena-Ana match by Adam Wells HERE.
Bouchard’s performance wasn’t so impressive; she lost rather handily to Simona Halep, 6-2 6-3, hitting 11 winners to 30 unforced errors. From all the comments on Twitter and reaction to this match, I got the sense that the result was more about Bouchard not playing well rather than Halep playing a great. It’s not clear whether it was nerves or the leg injury, or Genie just had a bad day at the office. One thing for sure is that she will have to improve significantly in her second match if she is still going to be in Singapore at the weekend.
In Bouchard’s favour, she has beaten Ivanovic in their only two match-ups and both were on the big stage. In 2013, Bouchard played on Centre Court at Wimbledon for the first time, and also, with very little warning after her match with Ivanovic was bumped up to the top court when Victoria Azarenka withdrew from the tournament. Bouchard responded to the change in schedule magnificently well as she defeated Ivanovic in straight sets, 6-3 6-3. In their only match in 2014, Bouchard defeated Ivanovic in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, 5-7 7-5 6-2. Ivanovic was not 100% during that match and had just taken out the number one seed, Serena Williams in the previous round for one of her biggest ever wins on tour. A letdown was inevitable.
This time round, Ivanovic will have much more confidence despite her recent loss to Serena. I think that Bouchard will improve because she is the kind of player that needs to feel her way into a tournament and that won’t produce a repeat of Monday’s performance at a tournament of this stature. However, Ivanovic showed enough in her first round match to suggest that she has what it takes to bag a first ever victory over Genie.
Prediction: Ivanovic d. Bouchard in 3 sets
Poll result from day 2: 30% correctly predicted that Radwanska would beat Kvitova. It was a bad day for Moo!
Moo's Tennis Blog 
It’s all down to Ivanovic and her serve. Despite the two losses, I reckon she’ll be feeling pretty confident in her game in this one. She has more power and a better shot variety and she is moving much better too.
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