MONTREAL: Eugenie Bouchard reconnected with her hometown fans as she reached the second round of the WTA hardcourt tournament in Montreal with a dramatic three-set victory on Tuesday, lending a little star-power as the event lost French Open champion Garbine Muguruza.

In per past two appearances at her home event, Bouchard had failed to win a match.

But she gave fans what they wanted to see with a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3) victory over Czech Lucie Safarova.

After dominating the first set, she made a sluggish start to the second and Safarova took advantage to force a third frame.

That was after Spain’s Muguruza, the world No 3 and third seed, pulled out of her opening match complaining of gastrointestinal illness minutes before she was to take on Britain’s Naomi Broady.

Organizers filled her place in the draw with lucky loser Varvara Lepchenko of the United States, who defeated Broady 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

In the only other second-round match of the day, fifth-seeded Romanian Simona Halep defeated Australian Daria Gavrilova 6-2, 6-3.

Halep and Gavrilova had split their last two meetings.

But Halep, coming off her second title of the season at home in Bucharest, was in control throughout, never facing a break point in the first set and shaking off an early tremor in the second to win in 86 minutes.

Britain’s Johanna Konta, less than 48 hours removed from lifting her first WTA title with an upset of Venus Williams in Stanford on Sunday, reached the second round with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over American Shelby Rogers.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2016