Eugenie Bouchard’s recent, hopefully temporary, tumble from grace is no secret among tennis fans at the moment. Last year’s breakout story, and still voted the world’s most marketable athlete by Sports Pro last week, has shriveled under the pressure in 2015, turning in a less than pedestrian 7-10 record.
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In an interview with L’equipe, prior to Bouchard’s opening round loss at Roland Garros to Kristinia Mladenovic on Day 3, Bouchard’s new coach Sam Sumyk gave tennis fans some insight into the troubled Canadian’s situation.
“She has a lot of character, but she’s a bit tortured at the moment,” Sumyk said. “Ambitious, very perfectionist people are naturally like that. Her game-style is a plus. She hits the ball cleanly. She’s not the most powerful but she has a monstrous capacity for work. Her ambition is obvious even if it’s a little shaky at the moment. It’s up to me to guide her and for the whole team to make her an athlete. She’s hungry to learn.”
Sumyk added that his charge has been bowled over by the expectations and pressure that came when she reached the Wimbledon final last year. Suddenly she was the biggest tennis star in Canada’s history and the 21-year-old clearly had difficulty shouldering the burden.
“Everything changed for her after her final at Wimbledon, too fast actually,” he said. “She went from ‘no one knows who she is’ to a Grand Slam final. That’s heavy. All the parameters change. When you have good results and rise in the rankings, you enter the circle of the most hated players on the tour. Everyone wants to kick your butt. You have to be ready for that.”
Bouchard was reflective after her loss on Tuesday, saying that she was learning to be patient and to deal with the highs and lows of her profession. Sumyk, in the interview, says it is sink or swim time in that regard.
“You have several choices when going through a storm,” he said. “You can get depressed, you can attach a weight to your leg and jump of a bridge. Or, if you have character, and I think my player has lots of character, you try and bounce back. I know she’s going in that direction.”