In a match that was thrilling throughout, under the floodlights of the Manolo Santana Stadium, Eugenie Bouchard sealed a memorable 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 win over Maria Sharapova after two hours and 51 minutes of intense battle. The Canadian, who sealed her ticket to the last sixteen of the Mutua Madrid Open, managed to see off the 2014 champion in one of Monday\u2019s most electric ties in the Caja M\u00e1gica.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very tough match, not just in terms of fitness and tennis, but also mentally\u201d, said the Canadian. \u201cIt was a battle from the start. I am happy to have been able to hold on throughout and to be stronger at the end\u201d, said Bouchard after her first victory over Sharapova in five encounters. \u201cGenerally I was good mentally, she is playing well right now, and that makes me feel proud. It was one of my best matches in recent years\u201d.<\/p>\n
Carrying nearly three hours of hard work in her legs and with defeat on her mind, Sharapova took the result in Madrid with grace. \u201cOn this surface the word fight is part of the game\u201d, said the Russian following her loss in one of this year\u2019s most demanding clashes. \u201cWhen I was ahead I wasn\u2019t able to control the match. She has always played well against me, we played three sets at Roland Garros and I didn\u2019t expect anything else\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed, I would be worried about myself if I were sitting here happily after losing a match\u201d offered Sharapova. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who the opponent is, it doesn\u2019t matter what round it is, if it is the first match or the final of a Grand Slam. That feeling is what makes it possible for me to keep winning matches and tournaments\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a match that was thrilling throughout, under the floodlights of the Manolo Santana Stadium, Eugenie Bouchard sealed a memorable 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 win over Maria Sharapova after two hours and 51 minutes of intense battle. The Canadian, who sealed her ticket to the last sixteen of the Mutua Madrid Open, managed to see off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":76869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[15,752,314,17,42],"class_list":["post-76868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mutua-news","tag-caja-magica-en","tag-eugenie-bouchard-en","tag-maria-sharapova-en","tag-mutua-madrid-open-en","tag-wta-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutuamadridopen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}