Eugenie Bouchard of Canada reacts
Eugenie Bouchard progressed further than she ever has at a Grand Slam in her young career, but she was left lamenting missed chances that could have prolonged her run into the depleted field at Wimbledon.
Bouchard lost her bid for a spot in the fourth round at Wimbledon on Friday as the Montreal teenager lost to Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro 7-5, 6-2.
"This was an opportunity that I had that I lost," Bouchard said. "I felt generally the whole match I had a few loose shots, loose errors, that I normally don't make that I was making."
Despite the loss, it was a career-best grand slam showing for the 66th-ranked Bouchard. Her previous best was a berth in the second round of the French Open earlier this year.
The 2012 junior champion at the All England club fought hard from 4-1 down in both sets but was unable to close the gap against the experienced Spaniard. The first set went well over an hour, the second was done in an additional 29 minutes.
"She returned really well, I knew that going in," Bouchard said. "My serve wasn't as good as previous matches."
Bouchard limited her winning chances with 21 unforced errors in the opening set. She saved two set points in the ninth game, forced her opponent to four break points in the 11th and then dropped her own serve in the 12th as Suarez Navarro fired a backhand winner down the line.
Bouchard failed to regroup in the second set as the pair traded early breaks before the Spaniard ran off into the lead.
Bouchard saved two match points in the final game before sending a forehand out to end it with 24 winners and 32 unforced errors.
"For sure it went differently than I hoped," Bouchard said. "She was very consistent, and more aggressive than me. I should have done more to try to control the points — instead she did.
"I'll take lots of experience out of this whole week and try to learn from all the mistakes and take the good and the bad and just keep working hard."
Two Canadian men's doubles teams advanced, with veteran Daniel Nestor and Swedish partner Robert Lindstedt reaching the third round.
The sixth-seeded Nestor and Lindstedt defeated Argentines Eduardo Schwank and Horacio Zeballos 6-1, 7-5, 6-3 and will next face the winner from a match between ninth-seeded Britons Colin Fleming and Jonathan Marray and Czech Frantisek Cermak and Slovak Michael Mertinak.
There was also first-round success for Canadians Jesse Levine and Vasek Pospisil as that unseeded combination defeated Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic and American Rajeev Ram, 6-2, 6-4, 6-1.
The opening match for Levine, from Ottawa, and Vancouver's Pospisil was postponed by rain on Thursday evening.
The pair were teaming up for the first time since April, when they reached the semi-finals of a Challenger event in Savannah, Ga.
Levine and Pospisil will next take on American Nicolas Monroe and German Simon Stadler.
Nestor, 40, from Toronto, won the title at the All England Club in
2008 and 2009 with former partner Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia and played the 2002 final with Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. He and Max Mirnyi of Belarus exited in the second round in 2012.
Nestor and Lindstedt made sure they avoided the long match they played in the first round this week as morning rain gave way to dry weather and faint sunshine.
The seeds got on top of their opponent as they quickly won the first two sets, with Nestor guiding his partner to a 4-1 lead in the third at the only grand slam where doubles is played in best-of-five-sets.
The Argentines earned a late break of Lindstedt stay in contention
2-5 and saved a match point on their serve a game later to hold for 3-5.
But it was all over a game later as Nestor pounded down a smash to earn three match points, with Lindstedt applying the finishing touch seconds later in the 87-minute rout.
The winners ended with three aces and five breaks of serve as they try to rescue a grass season now standing at 2-2.