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Bouchard, Halep lose Wimbledon openers; Federer, Nadal win

Duan then consigned Bouchard to her 12th defeat in her last 14 matches, claiming the second set 6-4.

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First, No. 12 Eugenie Bouchard, the Wimbledon runner-up in 2014, lost in straight sets (7-6, 6-4) to Duan Ying-Ying who is ranked No. 117 in the world.

The entire match was a complete mess for Bouchard, but only went downhill as she marched on. “And it’s a whole different ball game when suddenly, they become the hunted, not the hunter”.

Two years ago, Murray won the title at the All England Club, becoming the first male champion from Britain since Fred Perry in 1936.

” “Her mental strength simply deserted her. “[Cepelova] played very good tennis,” Halep said, conceding that she struggled to counter Cepelova’s fearless tactic of rushing the net to prevent Halep from dictating the tempo of the match from the baseline. “After Eastbourne we did testing and I had a grade two tear on my ab”.

“It probably wouldn’t have been smart to play here, but I couldn’t pass on Wimbledon,” she said. Its just the way I am.

Wimbledon is renowned for its strict dress code which states that: “Competitors must be dressed in suitable tennis attire that is nearly entirely white and this applies from the point at which the player enters the court surround”. But also I’m not as strong as I want to be.

“I’ve made great progress in the last 18 days”, he said Saturday.

China’s Duan Yingying, nicknamed as “Duanvenport” by her fans, said she hopes to win more matches after shocking last year’s beaten finalist Eugenie Bouchard at the first round of the Wimbledon Championships here on Tuesday. Stephens beat Czech Barbora Strychova 6-4, 6-2 yesterday.

For 106th-ranked Cepelova – best known for beating Serena Williams on clay at Charleston previous year – the reward was a matchup with another Romanian, No. 48 Monica Niculescu, who reached the final at the warmup event in Nottingham in early June. After losing in three sets to Maria Sharapova of Russian Federation in Paris, Halep reached the last four at Wimbledon.

Eugenie Bouchard has revealed that she will be taking time out of the game following her defeat in the first round of Wimbledon.

“I knew it would be a hard tournament for me, ” Halep said, explaining that her confidence was low because of poor recent results. This season she’s 32-9 and her win total is fifth highest among WTA players.

“I only thought for a second that it maybe wasn’t meant to be this time”, said Watson of fending off those three match points.

“Today it was one set and that was it so I had to make sure I had a good start, so that’s why I came onto the court already sweating, very motivated”. I was taped and it felt okay and I was trying not to think about it, but I haven’t practised that much so I felt my timing was very off.

“I feel like, you know, each time I had a loss, there were different reasons for each one”.

Bouchard could bounce back if she starts believing in herself again, according to 18-time major singles victor Chris Evert.

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Defending champion Petra Kvitova and Angelique Kerber were in ruthless mood as they both made it through to the second round at Wimbledon. At 4-4 Duan, 25, fought her way to two break points.

Eugenie Bouchard