The sixth seed, Eugenie Bouchard, a semi-finalist at the French Open last year on her way to the Wimbledon final, chose the wrong day to switch off against the clay specialist Kristina Mladenovic and experienced the pain of first-round defeat for the first time .
Mladenovic, who has had many of her best wins here – including the scalp of the champion Li Na last year – and has been designated the WTA’s Rising Star, won 6-4, 6-4 on grey but far from dull Tuesday in an hour and 23 minutes that the Canadian may well have wished she had spent elsewhere.