{"id":31722,"date":"2025-07-29T11:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T11:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/31722\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T11:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T11:41:08","slug":"eugenie-bouchard-extends-her-career-with-nbo-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/31722\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugenie Bouchard extends her career with NBO win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Eugenie Bouchard of Canada celebrates after defeating Emiliana Arango of Colombia during her first round match at the National Bank Open tennis tournament in Montreal on Monday night.Christopher Katsarov\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Eugenie Bouchard is off to a triumphant start in her final tournament.<\/p>\n

The former world No. 5 \u2014 and first Canadian woman to contest a Grand Slam final in the open era \u2014 upset Colombia\u2019s Emiliana Arango 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 in the first round Monday night at the National Bank Open, extending her tennis career for at least one match.<\/p>\n

Bouchard, who also earned her 300th singles win, announced on July 16 that she would hang up her racket at the end of her hometown event.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old from Westmount, Que., rose to prominence with a sensational season in 2014. At only 20, Bouchard reached the Wimbledon final and played in the Australian Open and French Open semifinals. She also won her only WTA title in Nuremberg, Germany.<\/p>\n

Bouchard, however, never returned to that level after losing to Petra Kvitova in straight sets in the championship game at the All England Club.<\/p>\n

From Vernon, B.C. to Wimbledon, Vasek Pospisil’s tennis career proves ‘Anything is Pospisil’<\/a><\/p>\n

Now ranked 1,062nd, Bouchard has moved away from the pro tennis circuit in recent years, spending more time on the PPA Pickleball Tour, where she ranks 12th in singles.<\/p>\n

Fans showed up at a mostly full IGA Stadium, welcoming Bouchard with loud applause when she stepped on the court and cheering her on \u2014 with mixed chants of \u201cLet\u2019s Go Genie!\u201d and \u201cAllez Eugenie!\u201d \u2014 at every point.<\/p>\n

After splitting the first two sets, Bouchard broke the 82nd-ranked Arango twice \u2014 first with a forehand, then from the Colombian\u2019s missed volley \u2014 to build a 5-1 lead in the decisive third.<\/p>\n

Arango broke back with Bouchard serving for the match to make it 5-2, but the Canadian went up 40-love in the ensuing game. Arango then sent her backhand wide on Bouchard\u2019s second match point.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Bouchard fed off of her hometown crowd on Monday night as she worked to complete her upset win over Emiliana Arango of Colombia.Minas Panagiotakis\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Bouchard waved and blew kisses to the crowd after the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told my family that if I won, I would come out of retirement,\u201d she said from centre court. \u201cI felt like the old Genie out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll take on 17th seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in the second round.<\/p>\n

Bouchard came out with flashes of her attacking style, pushing Arango out of position with a dangerous backhand before hitting a forehand winner to go up 1-0.<\/p>\n

Arango took a 3-2 lead in the first set, converting her third breakpoint, but Bouchard instantly broke back to loud applause.<\/p>\n

After holding serve to go up 5-4, the local favourite earned double breakpoint and hit a forehand winner down the line to take the set \u2014 and lift fans out of their seats for a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

Her momentum, however, didn\u2019t carry into the second set as Arango broke Bouchard three times to comfortably force a third.<\/p>\n

Earlier Monday, Canada\u2019s Kayla Cross and Ariana Arseneault dropped out of the NBO after the first round.<\/p>\n

Cross let a one-set lead slip away in a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 loss to Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia, and Arseneault of Richmond Hill, Ont., lost 6-4, 6-2 to Japan\u2019s Naomi Osaka.<\/p>\n

Carson Branstine, who grew up in California but represents Canada through family ties in Toronto, took on Greece\u2019s Maria Sakkari in the final match of the night.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s Victoria Mboko, Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., and Vancouver\u2019s Rebecca Marino advanced to the second round with wins Sunday.<\/p>\n

Andreescu\u2019s status for the remainder of the tournament is unclear after she hurt her left ankle on match point against Czechia\u2019s Barbora Krejcikova.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Eugenie Bouchard of Canada celebrates after defeating Emiliana Arango of Colombia during her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,82,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-31722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}