Tebbut:
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ENTERING THE SCENE
On Thursday evening – no earlier than 6 p.m. (9 p.m. ET in Canada), Genie Bouchard will play in her seventh BNP Paribas Open when she starts out against no. 56-ranked Kirsten Flipkins of Belgium.
Bouchard and Flipkins, a 33-year-old who ranked as high as no. 13 in 2013, will be meeting for the first time. Flipkins is an aggressive, forward-moving player who should present an attractive target for the 25-year-old Montrealer if she’s sharp and playing good tennis. The winner will get to play hyper-competitive American Danielle Collins, the 25th seed and a semi-finalist at the 2019 Australian Open.
Doubles at the Indian Wells event is often simply used as a tune-up for some of the top singles players. That certainly seemed to be the case on Wednesday night when the wild card pairing of no. 4-ranked Sloane Stephens and Bouchard played a first-round match against Flipkins and Johanna Larsson of Sweden. It was pretty chilly in Stadium 2 but Bouchard and Stephens only had to stay out there for 54 minutes in a 6-1, 6-2 loss to the Belgian/Swedish pairing.
On Thursday Bouchard and Flipkins will graduate from 8,000-seat Stadium 2 to the big house – 16,100 capacity Stadium 1 – for their opening-round encounter.
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