Tennis’s new superbrat has lost the plot
The one-time rising star of women’s game is now as famous for her modelling and tantrums as her tennis
THE ice maiden cometh. Or so we assumed. Eugenie Bouchard was named this week as the most marketable athlete on the planet, as the Canadian’s cascading blonde mane, cherubic smile and bilingual upbringing in Quebec all translated in the marketing gurus’ eyes to an irresistible crossover appeal.
That, unfortunately, was before she was bundled out of the French Open in the first round by Kiki Mladenovic, ranked 38 places below her. It was difficult, at first, to muster too much sympathy.
Bouchard, even at a tender age of 21, has seldom been a figure to warm to instinctively, whether in her cold excommunication of her friend Laura Robson or her refusal to shake the hand of a Romanian Fed Cup opponent in a ridiculous piece of preening gamesmanship.
This combination of glacial chic and cold-eyed efficiency made her, in many eyes, the logical heiress to Maria Sharapova. But it is tempting to wonder, given that she has won just one match since mid-March, whether she might more aptly be billed as the new Anna Kournikova.
Naturally, even extravagantly gifted young phenoms in tennis are susceptible to the odd bump in the road.
It is a jolt to summon up the memory of Roger Federer not as an effortlessly floating aesthete, but as a querulous teenage renegade once vanquished at Wimbledon by England’s Tim Henman.
But there are signals that the problems for Bouchard run deeper.
Stephanie Myles, the Canadian writer who has followed her career from its infancy, wrote upon her defeat in Paris: “Never in recent memory has she seemed so lost, so shellshocked. In a way, she has rarely appeared more sympathetic, more human.”
Bouchard has seldom been too preoccupied with presenting a gentler face to the world. In the manner of Jennifer Capriati or Serena Williams, she was hatched, apparently fully formed, as a player who couldn’t give a hoot about who she alienated so long as she beat them.
Even her close connection to Robson, with whom she once attended music festivals and recorded a Gangnam Style video, has been ruthlessly sun- dered. Listening to her response at last year’s Wimbledon to a question about whether they could still be considered mates — “No, I don’t think so” — one could almost feel the frost forming on the windows.
Nobody quite knows how their relationship foundered. But it is of a piece with some of Bouchard’s other peculiar behaviour. Last month, she left the hand of Romania’s Alexandra Dulgheru dangling in mid-air as she refused even to engage in pre-match pleasantries.
It was scarcely credible that the young woman who curtseyed before the Royal Box at a Wimbledon final had morphed overnight into an obstreperous superbrat.
But the lapse in her etiquette has been mirrored in the decline in her form, with a string of firstround losses suggesting she is in no position to emulate the grasscourt grace she displayed last year.
It is true that the parameters of Bouchard’s life have shifted at warp speed. Barely two years ago, she was one of a legion of ambitious thrusters seeking to make the grade at grand slams, and before she was even of legal drinking age in her native Montreal she had reached the semifinals of three in succession.
The impression of late is that it was all too much, too soon. Bouchard promptly jettisoned Nick Saviano, the coach who had steered her to prominence, and recruited a super-agent so that she had the chance to moonlight for a top modelling division.
Nothing wrong with capitalising upon her image, of course, but this premature sacrifice of results for fashion is uncannily Kournikova-esque.
The sultry Russian was the same age as Bouchard when she became less interested in advancing to the second week of Wimbledon than in gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. It would be a pity if Bouchard’s talent was to go west with the same haste.
Her billing as sport’s leading poster-child, more appealing to advertisers than even Neymar of Barcelona or 21-year-old Masters champion Jordan Spieth, carries the risk of seducing her in the wrong direction.
Bouchard has all the assets to fulfil every competitive and commercial aspiration she harbours. She just needs to lose the attitude. — ©
Bouchard has all the assets. She just needs to lose the attitude The lapse in her etiquette has been mirrored in the decline in her form