After three hours, and countless opportunities, Eugenie Bouchard ultimately bows out to Carla Suarez Navarro in Rome

It wasn't so much that Genie Bouchard lost to Carla Suárez Navarro in Rome Thursday, but how she lost.

A three-hour marathon ended up 6-7 (2), 7-5, 7-6 (7) in the Spaniard's favour, a match that was short on quality tennis but generous on the psychodrama. Depending on how big a Bouchard fan you are, how much of a positive thinker you are, how badly you're searching for signs that the 21-year-old Canadian is slowly turning things around, or how worried you are that there was much of the same-old, same-old, there was plenty of material to support whatever case you wanted to make.

It was the first time Bouchard had faced a top-20 player since losing to Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open, nearly four months ago.

Suárez Navarro, highly adept on the clay and ranked No. 10, was most definitely not in top form on the day. There was none of the usual bouncy energy you see from her, no attack, few changes of directions and, in the third set, no legs. In other words, she was an opponent the confident Bouchard of 2014 would have had little trouble with, and even the confidence-challenged 2015 version definitely had a shot against.

Bouchard had a LOT of opportunities. She served for a straight-sets win at 5-4 in the second set, and was broken. She served for it again at 5-4 in the third set, and was broken. She served for it a third time at 6-5 in the third and was, you guessed it, broken.

In the ultimate tiebreak, Suárez Navarro built a 6-2 lead – and coughed up four straight match-point opportunities, only one of which Bouchard can claim proper credit for saving. Bouchard earned her first match point at 7-6 in that tiebreak – and double-faulted. At 7-7 ... she double-faulted again. On her fifth match point, the Spaniard converted, a winner despite herself.

See? Not kidding about the psychodrama.

There were 15 total service breaks on 26 total opportunities (an excellent conversion ratio by both - 7-for-14 for Bouchard, 8-for-12 for Suárez Navarro, if you want to find a positive). There were 71 winners and 112 total unforced errors out of a total of 250 points played.

So, to sum up, here are the good things:

* Bouchard kept her cool more or less throughout. A couple of balls slapped in anger (no casualties). One racquet toss after an errant backhand cost her the break when she served for it the second time. Despite all the disappointments, she kept hanging in there. It was nearly enough.

* She displayed the "right intentions" (coach Sam Sumyk's phrase) in trying to move forward to the net fairly regularly. That it was a bit of a dog's breakfast once she got there was sort of a side issue at this point; it's a part of her game that disappeared months ago. When he came out for the coaching consult after the second set, Sumyk basically advised her to ditch the volleys and go with the swing volley. But she did hit a couple of legitimate ones on the forehand side.

*There were a few moments, especially early on, when you could see signs of the simpler serve motion Bouchard and Sumyk have been working on in practice. It's a tough thing to change something like that, especially mid-season. During the tight moments in the middle of the match, the old motion - the one where she looks like she's about to fall over and lands shakily on one leg – reappeared. Often, the motion seemed to start with the new and end with the old, creating a slow, arching trajectory that most often landed long. There were a lot of big misses. But clearly they're trying.

Bouchard's numbers on serve in the first set (81% of points on first, 50% on second) were very, very good. After that, it got a little complicated.

*She played an excellent, controlled, aggressive tiebreak in the first set.

*No tears.

*She was by far the fresher of the two physically in the third set, on a hot day in windy conditions.

*She quickly recovered from opening breaks in the first two sets to get back on serve (albeit, with a lot of help from her opponent). But things didn't spiral out of control.

*Bouchard handled Suárez Navarro's slice backhand beautifully, to the point where the Spaniard pretty much put it away as part of her tactical tool kit.

Now, the not-so-good things:

The first two attempts to serve out the match were undone by a rash of groundsroke errors. And there were too many slow, appetizing second serves from her opponent that Bouchard went after aggressively, but missed incredibly badly. And too many second shots right after the return missed out of impatience.

It's no surprise that Bouchard would get tight as a drum on those key occasions. Just 24 hours before, she had struggled to close out Zarina Diyas – several times. But she had given herself a 5-0 cushion that day; not so on Thursday.

In the end, Suárez Navarro played a thoroughly morose match. Even after winning the second set, she looked thoroughly depressed sitting in her chair. An attempt by her coach – practically a plea – to show more "life" and "character" went pretty much ignored.

There were so many little adjustments the Spaniard could have made to gain control of the match. She made none of them.

In other words, Suárez Navarro clearly wasn't up for a big battle on the day. She hung in there, but it was Bouchard's match to win or lose. Ultimately, the Canadian's lack of confidence did her in on a day she likely should have come out the victor.

But there were enough little fragments of the best Bouchard that in the end, it was one for the plus column. Barely.

As of Thursday afternoon, Bouchard had not requested a wild card into next week's event in Nürnberg, Germany, the place she won her first (and so far, only) WTA Tour title a year ago. It seems the plan may be to practice for 10 days before the French Open.