Eugenie Bouchard draws No. 13 seed Andrea Petkovic in comeback, Part II, in Beijing

The first step for Canadian tennis star Genie Bouchard was actually getting to Asia, after a concussion suffered in a locker-room accident at the US Open Sept. 4 put her on the shelf.

The second step will be to actually take the court for a match.

That effort was cut short last week in Wuhan, China when Bouchard suffered a return of the concussion symptoms on the practice court Saturday, and withdrew from the tournament a few hours before she was scheduled to play No. 11 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland on Monday.

By Friday, she was in Beijing, China for an even bigger WTA Tour event, a joint event with the ATP Tour and a mandatory tournament on the women's schedule.

This time, Bouchard drew No. 13 seed Andrea Petkovic of Germany in the first round.

She practiced Friday with Timea Bacsinsky of Switzerland, and from photos published on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo, was back on her selfie game (the blacking out of Bouchard's selfie "partner" was theirs, not ours).

The association with Montreal conditioning coach Dean Hollingsworth, which began a few days before the Rogers Cup and ran through the disastrous end to the US Open, appears to be over for now (Hollingsworth had worked with Bouchard before this particular stint).

Indeed, she has a new conditioning coach on a trial basis in Asia (seen below) and, we're told, is trying out a new coach as well (Eh Game was told just before the US Open that Bouchard and Tennis Canada had been in serious discussions with experienced WTA coach Thomas Hogstedt; we'll see there was any substance to that).

Was the decision to try to play in Asia a mistake, a little premature? It seemed so on the surface. But Eh Game consulted a couple of knowledgeable people in the field and in the end, given Bouchard just wants to play – especially after getting a little of her mojo back at the US Open – it wasn't as crazy as it might seem.

As long as Bouchard completed the concussion protocol properly and passed all the required tests – and all indications are that she did before she flew to Florida 10 days ago – it was the right move to try, to see if the recovery was going as expected. She could be among the small percentage of concussion victims whose recovery takes longer than the average, but there's no way of knowing that without testing herself.

There has been some evidence that flying can hasten the return of concussion symptoms, but only one study has posited this as a definite.

Bouchard did have a setback last week. But having already recovered from both the long transatlantic flight and the jet lag, she likely will be in better shape to take the court again in Beijing or, failing that, the week after in Hong Kong.

There can't be much expectation of performance here, though. Assuming she does play.

Main-draw women's singles begins in Saturday in Beijing, even as the qualifying continues and the men's qualifying gets under way. Bouchard is not on the schedule.