Eugenie Bouchard blasts past Kerber to reach French Open quarters

Eugenie Bouchard of Canada outplayed Angelique Kerber at the French Open 2014 tournament. The Canadian is through to her second consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal. She reached the semifinals at last January’s Australian Open tournament. Bouchard won her first career WTA title last weekend at Nurnberg and the winning streak continued with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over the higher-ranked German.

“She’s a great player and she played very well today,” Kerber said. “I didn’t play my best tennis today. I couldn’t find my rhythm. I was completely not on the court. I was there and I was trying to come back, but I just wasn’t feeling the ball, and it was really tough. I don’t really know what happened.

“But I think she played very well today, so congratulations to her. That’s sport.”

“Today my goal of taking it early worked really well – I was really going for my shots,” Bouchard said after the match. “I felt good out there. I think I executed my game plan really well, so I’m pretty happy with that.

“I mean, I’m confident. I really believe in my skills. I believe I can play with the best girls out there. She’s Top 10, so I respect her, and she can play some really good tennis, so I was really mentally prepared for anything, for a battle. I think that kind of mindset really helped me out there today.

“There are always things to improve though. I’ll try to do even better for my next match.”

Up next for Bouchard is Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain who ended the run of 21-year old Ajla Tomljanovic of Croatia.