Montreal, June 26, 2014 – For the third time this year, Canadians Eugenie Bouchard (Westmount, QC) and Milos Raonic (Thornhill, ON) have both reached the third round of a Grand Slam. For his part, Frank Dancevic (Niagara Falls, ON) was defeated in the second round.
Raonic reached the third round at Wimbledon for the first time in his career on Thursday thanks to a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over American Jack Sock in 103 minutes. Sock, who seemed to struggle physically, had the doctor come on court at the end of the first set. Meanwhile, the tournament’s no. 8 seed had another good serving day, winning 86 percent of his first serve points. Raonic also never faced a break point in the match and broke Sock once in each set. The 23-year-pld Canadian hit 40 winners compared to 21 for Sock. In Saturday’s third round, Raonic will face Lukasz Kubot of Poland.
“I am happy that I was able to stay focused through the whole match and not have a dip in my level of play. This is an important part of the game, especially on grass.” Raonic said after the match. “I was able to break early in the first two sets which helped me.”
Bouchard was facing world no. 75 Silvia Soler-Espinosa of Spain. Despite trailing 0-2 and 4-5 in the opening set, the 20-year-old advanced following a 7-5, 6-1 win. Soler-Espinosa was very consistent off the ground at the start of the match, but Bouchard still managed to hit 24 winners. She moves on to the third round at Wimbedon for the second straight year and will next face no. 20 seed Andrea Petkovic of Germany. Petkovic beat Bouchard in three sets in the Charleston semifinals in April.
After knocking out no. 29 seed Ivo Karlovic in the first round, Frank Dancevic fell in straight sets to Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. Dancevic was playing his fifth match at Wimbledon after contesting three qualifying matches.
