The brutally hot and humid conditions that have struck this years US Open claimed another victim as Eugenie Bouchard was detained in the medical headquarters of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center for several hours after suffering heat exhaustion during her fourth round exit to Ekaterina Makarova.
Bouchards defeat prevented the Canadian 20 year-old from reaching at least the semifinals of a fourth Grand Slam tournament this year but she was more concerned with the state of her health.
Play was stopped for about 10 minutes in the second set after Bouchard appeared to become disorientated on the Louis Armstrong Stadium court where there is no shade whatsoever. She appeared to be overheated and certainly looked in distress as medics took her blood pressure and then applied ice bags at the players courtside chair.
Then after suffering a 7-6, 6-4 defeat to 17th seeded Makarova, Bouchard had much more treatment and was ordered by doctors to rest for at least a couple of hours before fulfilling her media requirements.
I spent a bit of time with the doctors and physios here just trying to recuperate a little bit, reported Bouchard. I was feeling very light headed and dizzy on the court, just seeing things a little blurry.
They think the heat got to me a little bit and I probably was more tired than usual from the past few matches played late at night. I think I did well to push myself through those matches, but I also need to have the endurance. I haven’t had that in the past few months, basically. So it’s not, you know, a huge surprise to me.
Bouchard admitted the entire experience of reaching the Wimbledon final eight weeks ago took its toll and she found it difficult to re-motivate herself for tennis in the aftermath.
The current world no.8 lost in her opening matches in both the Rogers Cup in Montreal and Cincinnatis Western and Southern Open. She did however win one round in the Connecticut Open in New Haven but progressed no further.
So scoring three wins in succession at the US Open, two of them physically testing affairs against Romanias Sorana Cirstea and the Czech Republics Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, showed a marked improvement.
Now Bouchard intends to take a while to recuperate before setting out to make herself fitter for the upcoming Asian swing. I’m going to definitely rest a little bit and wait until I am 100% before I start training, she said. But I know there’s kind of no reason to worry. Once I do a lot of good training I can compete at this level for two whole weeks hopefully.
Topics: Ekaterina Makarova, Genie Bouchard, heat, Louis Armstrong Stadium, Tennis News, US Open
THE #HEAT BEAT #BOUCHARD @ THE @usopen , CANADA VERY PROUD OF HER EFFORTS- http://t.co/Dwbfa262jS @geniebouchard #tennis #usopen #Canada