Another former Top 10 player, Eugenie Bouchard, is playing an ITF Pro Circuit event this week in Indian Harbor Beach, Florida. She needed three sets to defeat 601st-ranker teenager Brianna Morgan, but advanced to the second round.
The former Grand Slam finalist had not competed in an ITF event since Nottigham in 2013. Having fallen outside the Top 50, Bouchard is winless in five events on the WTA tour.
Off the court, Bouchard's attorney filed a court document asking for the USTA to be sanctioned in the ongoing lawsuit about her fall at the 2015 U.S. Open. The letter sent to the court accuses the USTA of "knowingly and willfully destroying security camera footage" relating to the case.
According to the letter, as litigation was beginning in 2015, the USTA was told by Bouchard's representatives to keep all records and footage relevant to the incident. At the time, the USTA provided a three-hour security tape of the entrance to the women's locker room that evening.
But a few months ago, Bouchard's team spoke to the WTA trainer who was present that evening, and requested additional footage of other areas it said would substantiate the timing of events. The USTA replied that it could not provide the extra tapes because of its general practice of keeping security footage for 160 days.
"We asked for all of the tapes during and around that time to show where Genie was, where their employees were," Bouchard's lawyer, Benedict Morelli, told Canadian sports network TSN. "We sent them a preservation letter, which put them on notice that they had to preserve everything surrounding this lawsuit and they knew that."
