Genie Bouchard's second consecutive match victory in the Taiwan Open landed her in event quarterfinals for the first time in nearly a year.
Bouchard advanced on Thursday with a 7-5, 7-5 win over Romania's Ana Bogdan. The Montreal native will face Yafan Wang in Taipei City on Friday in the quarterfinals.
The last time Bouchard won consecutive matches was last May in Madrid. That was also the most recent time she advanced to the quarterfinals of any tournament. Bouchard ultimately lost in straight sets to Svetlana Kuznetsova after winning her first three matches.
.@GenieBouchard is through to @WTA_Taiwan_Open quarterfinals!
— WTA (@WTA) February 1, 2018
Tops Bogdan 7-5, 7-5! pic.twitter.com/vBRyFPRpU7
In her opening round in Taipei City, Bouchard came back from a set down against Lin Zhu to take a 1-6, 7-5, 2-0 win with Zhu retiring in the third set.
After Bouchard got off to a 2-1 start against Bogdan with an early break, neither could hold a serve and the pair matched breaks in the opening set. Bouchard capitalized on the opportunity to serve out after being broken on her first attempt.
Exchanging breaks again in the second set, Bouchard went up 5-3 after earning a crucial break, keeping the pressure on Bogdan. The Romanian held on and broke Bouchard, but Genie served out for the win after her seventh break of the match.
Bouchard is looking to bounce back from her early departure at the Australian Open in January, when world No. 1 Simona Halep ousted her in round two. The loss in Melbourne continued Bouchard's world ranking skid and she entered the Taiwan Open as the world No. 121.
Bouchard will face Wang for the first time in her career on Friday.