Canada's Eugenie Bouchard returns to Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro during their Women's Singles Match on the opening day at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Monday, July 3, 2017.Adam Davy/The Associated Press
In her pretournament press conference Monday at the Rogers Cup, the opening question to Genie Bouchard was a humbling one that she answered quite frankly.
The 23-year-old Canadian player had memorably reached a career-high ranking of No. 5 back in 2014, but has since fallen to No. 70 – yet she's one of the faces of this week's WTA tournament at York University. The first question the well-known Montrealer faced on Monday was how it felt when she entered a recent tournament on the ITF circuit, a second-tier tennis tour.
"It was something I wanted to go do myself and, actually, my whole team was against it, but I'm very glad I did it," said Bouchard, who played the event as a harsh reminder of the workmanlike lifestyle on lower tennis circuits. "Grinding at that level, you know – this is what you would have to do if you keep losing, so stop losing."
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Bouchard rose to prominence with an inspiring breakout 2014 season when she made Canadian history by appearing in the Wimbledon final and also marched to the semis at the Australian Open and Roland Garros. Three years later, she has a 12-15 record in singles matches so far in 2017. Bouchard still intrigues Canadians, though, and a deep run in Toronto could jolt to life a humdrum event missing many of the WTA Tour's biggest names, from Maria Sharapova to Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams.
"I would love to play great in Canada, because I don't get to play here often," Bouchard said. "And I do feel my country's support when I'm playing around the world. So I would love more than anything to play well for them, but it will be really hard."
Bouchard – a wild card in Toronto – opens play Tuesday afternoon versus Croatian qualifier and world No. 51 Donna Vekic. Bouchard has faced Vekic just once before – a hard-court win for the Canadian in Shenzhen, China, back in 2016.
Bouchard is also playing doubles in Toronto, teaming with world No.1 Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic. The Canadian is fresh off her second career appearance in a doubles final, which she lost on Sunday in Washington, partnering with American Sloane Stephens.
On a cool holiday Monday afternoon under dark skies heavy with the threat of rain, first-round competition at the Rogers Cup drew a light crowd. Many of those fans on the Aviva Centre grounds, though, were drawn to the practice courts to watch Bouchard slugging away.
Players wrapped up after 60 minutes on every practice court except Bouchard's. She kept grinding for an additional 30 minutes, playing long, intense rallies with her male hitting partner of the day, Nikolai Haessig, a former pro who now coaches with Tennis Canada.
Several parents stopped while passing by the practice court fence and fixed their eyes on Bouchard, then excitedly pointed her out to their kids. One guy yelled out loudly from the overlooking stands, "I love you Genie!"
When she eventually finished and packed her bag, the stands around the practice courts cleared and fans excitedly scrambled toward the fence, anticipating her exit. Three security guards rushed over to flank her as the admirers quickly circled, and she scribbled just a few quick autographs before moving on.
The crowd followed her closely and awkwardly as she inched over to make a very brief scheduled stop inside a promotional tent for travel company redtag.ca. She reclined for a few minutes into a lawn chair nestled in sand, and employees scrambled to affix a virtual reality mask to her face. She kicked back with a big smile and stretched her hands behind her head as images of a beachy vacation played in her mask, and the onlooking fans cooed.
She stood up and exited the tent as fans once again swarmed. They aggressively elbowed up beside her and thrust their phones toward her for selfies as she walked. Security guards were glued to her sides, eyeballing the fans as Bouchard indulged a handful of selfie ops to persistent admirers who kept stride.
"It's obviously a home tournament, but it's not home as in the place where I grew up and played tennis at since I was eight years old," Bouchard would later say in her press conference. "[There's] a little bit less pressure [in Toronto]."
She acknowledged that dealing with pressure, nerves and expectations has grown increasingly challenging as her celebrity has grown.
"I've learned more and been able to kind of maybe detach it a little bit and, you know, really make it, 'okay, this is my job and it's not, let's say, so personal,'" Bouchard said. "But it's an ongoing process. It's something I'll always have to deal with for the rest of my career."
Rachel Brady