Eugenie Bouchard - The Young Canadian Sensation!

The Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard is making a statement this season. She is only 20, and this is the third season she’s played as a pro, but she is advancing very quickly, and will be one of the favorites to win the title in Wimbledon.

Eugenie is the best Canadian player in history. She is currently ranked 12^th on the WTA list, which is her career his, and she reached the highest tournament tier a Canadian player did, two consecutive times – she made it to semifinal both in Australian Open and French Open this year.

Both times she lost to future champions – at the first slam of the season she was beaten by Na Li, and in Paris she lost to Maria Sharapova in a tight match.

Eugenie Bouchard was spotted early by the world’s best coaches, and moved to Florida when she was 12.

It is interesting that she was a pretty defensive player as a girl, and she won her first tournaments by backing and rallying the ball continuously, until her opponent made a mistake. Then she suddenly grew (she is 178 cm tall), and she had to adapt her game since she couldn’t cope with shorter and faster players anymore.

We saw that she adapted nicely that season, and her junior Wimbledon singles title is also the proof for that. In 2012 she was really getting through the rankings. Apart from competing on junior tour, which brought her the Wimbledon title, won against Elina Svitolina, she played on the ITF tour as well. She won 4 titles and lost one final, and she was ready for the big stage.

In 2013 she began the year pretty poorly, and was beaten by some players outside the top 200. Her first top 50 win came against Laura Robson, her best friend among tennis players. After that, she began to beat better players and put up admirable fights against the best. She put herself in the spotlight after beating Samantha Stosur, and then Ana Ivanovic at Wimbledon. Jelena Jankovic and Alize Cornet were also her “victims” in 2013.

Bouchard was the Newcomer of the year for the last season, first Canadian player to achieve that after Carling Basset, who is still the best Canadian player of all time, going by career high ranks. Basset was 8th when she was only 18 (she retired when she was 21), but Bouchard will surely break that in her career.

Eugenie is a tall, strong girl with very powerful strokes. In the Roland Garros semifinal we saw that her power almost matches Sharapova’s power, and the Russian clearly played her best tennis in Paris.

The Canadian dictates the rallies with her forehand, but her backhand, although it is not such a devastating weapon, is not bad. Her serve is good, but she will need to improve it even more to live up to her potential. It will be interesting to see how she will fair at Wimbledon since she was a junior champion two years ago, and the grass court is a perfect for her game.

Off court, Bouchard likes to party with friends, she spends her spare time reading books and she is a big hockey fan. Also, Eugenie is a great swimmer, too. It is interesting that she has a twin sister, but they are not identical twins.

When she was at the players’ party at Wimbledon in 2012 she had only one goal – to meet and talk to Roger Federer. She made it, and spent a few minutes chatting with the famous Swiss. Bouchard said later that the conversation with Federer was the highlight of her life!

It’s possible that he gave her some top secret advice for success; so, beware of her on the forthcoming Wimbledon tournament!