Eugenie Bouchard of Canada hits a return during her women's singles semi-final tennis match against Simona Halep of Romania at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London July 3, 2014.
Eugenie Bouchard of Canada hits a return during her women's singles semi-final tennis match against Simona Halep of Romania at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London July 3, 2014. REUTERS

Eugenie Bouchard's hard court season hasn't been what people expected. After reaching at least the semifinal of the first three Grand Slam tournaments, Bouchard is suddenly in a free-fall losing two consecutive first-round matches at the Rogers Cup and the Cincinnati Masters.

The most prevalent question bothering members of the 'Genie Army' and casual tennis fans is what's going on with the top Canadian female netter?

The answer may perhaps lie on the condition of her knee. The 20-year old Bouchard has been dealing with a bothering pain in right knee following her French Open campaign. In fact, in the first round of her doubles martch at the Wimbledon Open, Bouchard had to put some tapes on her injured knee.

Bouchard didn't think the injury was that bad, so she removed it in her next match up to her finals duel with eventual champion Petra Kvitova.

"The tape was more of a hindrance than helping, so I ripped it off. Actually my knee didn't hurt at all. I don't think I'll tape it from now on," Bouchard said in an interview with Yahoo Sports. "Yeah, it was just kind of a preventive thing to make sure it didn't get worse. But it feels good."

Few weeks later, Bouchard made a decision to withdraw from the Citi Open due to a knee injury. Of course, many tennis pundits and followers underplayed Bouchard's medical reason to skip the low-tier tournament in Washington, stressing the Canadian might want more breather after a grueling Wimbledon Open tournament. However, there might be something in her knee that made her decide to take things slowly.

Alarming Results

Boosted by her Wimbledon Open finals appearance, Bouchard entered the North American hard-court moment as among the favourites in the Rogers Cup, Cincinnati Masters and the US Open championships.

However, things got awry right away in her hometown tournament as American Shelby Rogers stunned Bouchard 6-0, 2-6, 6-0 in the first round of the Rogers Cup. Then, former Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia made it a double black-eye for Bouchard as she defeated her in three sets 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.

With consecutive first-round setbacks, there's a thick cloud of doubt hovering on Bouchard's ability to go deeper into the US Open championships, and perhaps her knee is really a cause of concern.

For more Eugenie Bouchard news, read more at IBT Sports