Eugenie Bouchard made a triumphant return to tennis with her first-round win at the 2023 Bogota Open.
This season, the 29-year-old played only two matches, before she was forced to take an extended break again due to an injury. After three months away from the courts of the WTA Tour, Bouchard received a wild card for the 2023 Bogota Open, and she accepted it to play her first clay-court tournament since 2020.
In the first round, the Canadian was drawn against Ylena In-Albon from Switzerland, ranked 137th. The WTA 250 event in Bogota, also referred to as the Copa Colsanitas, is one of the tournaments that gives lower-ranked players good chance to make a deep run as the highest-ranked player in the draw is world no. 29, Elise Mertens.
Bouchard and In-Albon never met before but the Canadian has much more experience with winning important matches, especially after her run into the 2014 Wimbledon final.
The former world no. 5 started well, breaking her opponent in the first game of the match. But she was broken back immediately and lost her advantage. However, Bouchard kept applying pressure to her opponent's serve and eventually managed to break her not once, but twice to win the first set 6-3.
In the second set, the Canadian proved to be too strong for her opponent. At the start of the second set, she won 13 consecutive points to sprint into a 4-0 lead.
With a hold of serve, Bouchard was already up 5-0 and looked to bagel her opponent. But In-Albon had a brief moment when she played well and got one break back. Eventually, Bouchard used her experience to win the second set 6-2 and advance to the second round of the 2023 Bogota Open.
In her second-round match in Bogota, the Canadian will take on the fourth-seeded Kamilla Rakhimova who defeated Raluca Serban in the first round.
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