By Chris Oddo | Tuesday May 24, 2016
Genie Bouchard opens up about the pressure of success and her new lease on life.
Photo Source: Christopher Levy
Canada’s rising star fell down to earth last year, unravelling in a disappointing season that saw her plummet in the rankings and struggle to win matches, let alone major titles. But Eugenie Bouchard has shown a fair bit of maturity in response to that hardship, and she’s gradually started to put the pieces of her game back together in meaningful fashion.
More: Williams Rolls into Second Round of French Open
She hasn’t rocketed back to the Top-10, but Bouchard’s commitment has led to a stabilization that is allowing her to build confidence while she tinkers with her game and fitness. It hasn’t been easy for Bouchard to accept the tough times, but she is taking ownership of her career and exhibiting the fortitude that helped take her to the top of the game in 2014.
“The road to success is not straightforward,” Bouchard said in an interview on the Tennis Channel set at Roland Garros today. “It definitely has some curves and some bumps and I’ve learned that first-hand. It’s the way life is as well, and you have to be able to take the bad with the good. I learned a lot more from the bad than the good. Which is a good thing. I think that I’ve become a stronger person and a better player and hopefully I’ll get back to where I was and even better. Because the goal is to definitely do better than five in the world.”
Bouchard eased past Laura Siegemund of Germany 6-2, 6-2 on Court 16 on Tuesday, far away from the packed Court Philippe Chatrier and Court Suzanne Lenglen. Court 16 is so remote that Bouchard says her coaches didn’t even have a place to sit and may of the fans that came to watch her play there were turned away. Such is the plight of an unseeded player at a major.
“It’s funny,” Bouchard said. “I thought it was hilarious when I saw that I was playing on Court 16. I had friends who were stuck outside and couldn’t watch me play. I take it as a challenge. I feel like it’s kind of my first year on tour again. I try to see it as a positive thing, like you know I’m going to try to prove to myself how well I can play and prove that I do belong at the top. Nobody’s going to hand it to you. You have to work your way up all the way from Court 16 all the way to Philippe Chatrier.”
Work is exactly what Bouchard has done, and not just on her game—on her appetite as well. Earlier in May the Canadian opened up to WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen about her eating issues, and she spoke about them again today during her interview.
“I definitely felt a lot of pressure, a lot of expectations from the outside world and I also put it on myself,” Bouchard said of her rise to fame in 2014 that took her inside the Top 5 and created a bidding war among tennis agencies looking to represent her. “I just felt so nervous, it was hard for me to eat before matches or even sometimes at other meals. It was just hard to keep it down. For me I didn’t try to lose weight but it definitely happened—it was a cause of the stress. It’s something I managed to get through and I’ve learned a lot from it and now I have to just have to just force food down my throat even if I get sick and I have to get it in because I’m burning so many calories.”
Bouchard says that she’s had more energy this year and she’s added muscle as a result of more time spent in the gym. All of it has added up to some very respectable results. Her 19 wins this season are already seven more than she achieved in all of 2015.
“It only takes small things to kind of turn things around,” Bouchard said. “But now I feel prepared. Hopefully if I’m in that position again, where I’m expected to do well, I know how to deal with the stress and the nerves.”