PARIS, May 24, 2016

Some of the outdoor courts were really crowded on Tuesday morning at Roland Garros. One of them was No 16, where Eugenie Bouchard successfully opened her French Open campaign with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Laura Siegemund.

Laura Siegemund

The 28-year-old German had a great run in Stuttgart a couple of weeks ago, finishing runner-up to Angelique Kerber, but was without any chance against the Canadian. Bouchard lost her serve only once and converted five of her own break point chances to previal in one hour and 21 minutes.

“I would give myself an A today,” Bouchard was pleased with her performance. “I felt I was very focused throughout the whole match. I let up a little bit at the beginning the second set, but was able to regain my concentration right away. Yeah, never let up, even at the end of the match. So I think it was very good, focused effort from me today.”

But there were also some hard parts during the encounter.

Eugenie Bouchard

“Running down the dropshots. I knew that she likes to mix it up a lot so I was ready for that, but at the beginning the first few still surprised me a bit. I felt I did much better a couple games into the match.”

In Charleston, Bouchard has started to work with her former coach Nick Saviano again.

“I’m really happy to be working with Nick again. Yeah, I mean, the plan is to work together right now. He knows me so well. He understands when I’m going through difficulties. He can read me. It’s like he’s inside my head. So having a kind of partnership like that is really beneficial. I’m really happy with it.”

After a bit of struggle in 2015, the 22-year-old from Montreal is back on the winning ways.

“In 2015, I felt a lot of pressure and kind of this expectation if you win a match it’s normal and if you lose it’s a disaster. Before matches I was very nervous and definitely had trouble eating. I just felt like it would come right back up. It’s is difficulty I went through. And not just before matches, but happened to me at other meals as well.”

“So people think I was concerned about my body image and things like that and I was losing weight on purpose. That was really not the case. I was just so stressed I was burning calories even more than I normally would, so it was hard to kind of intake enough to keep my weight up or even gain weight, which was the goal, to become stronger. So, yeah, something I went through. I feel like I learned from it. I know now that even if I feel sick I have to force food down my throat. I feel like I’ve come out stronger and able to deal with a problem if it ever comes back to me again.”