Genie Army prepares to march on Montreal

Eugenie Bouchard won’t lack support as the hometown favourite at next month’s Rogers Cup in Montreal.

But Canada’s rising tennis star from Westmount — she’s now ranked seventh in the world — will also have a familiar band of Australian fans rooting for her at Uniprix Stadium.

The Genie Army is making the trek to Montreal for the tournament that runs from Aug. 1-10. Six of the 12 Aussies who formed the unique cheering section for Bouchard at the Australian Open plan to attend the Rogers Cup.

“I think it should be really exciting,” Bouchard said Friday during a photo opp at a Montreal bake shop. “I know there is a Canadian Genie Army as well so I don’t know then if we’ll have some kind of Genie Army battles in the crowd or something. But I know the atmosphere will be amazing no matter what.”

The Genie Army made headlines at the Australian Open in January for supporting Bouchard with their fun chants and distinctive get-up. Six of them wore T-shirts with a single red letter and an exclamation point that spelled out her name — G-E-N-I-E!

They aren’t bringing the exclamation point to the Rogers Cup. Instead one of them will wear a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Eat sleep Genie repeat.’

A few new chants and a theme song are also in the works.

“Sort of like you know a Genie Bouchard theme song that can be played after her games and stuff,” said Filippe Ricciardi, a 21-year-old university student in Melbourne.

“We want to do something a bit different, generally the same thing with chants and stuff,” Ricciardi said earlier this week in a telephone interview.

“There are only six of us so we’re not going to be as loud, unfortunately.”

“But I believe there’s a lot of Canadians that want to join the Genie Army so we might have to recruit a few people, make a nice wonderful atmosphere for Genie.”

When the group decided last December that Bouchard was the player they wanted to support at the Australian Open, they had no way of knowing that a month later she would play her way into the semifinals — nor the attention they would attract as her cheering section. They have more than 3,700 followers on Twitter (@geniearmy_real) and also have a Facebook site and Instagram account. And Genie Army is a popular hashtag on Twitter among Bouchard’s supporters.

“It’s pretty outrageous, to be honest,” said Stephen Ganavas, 17, the youngest member of the army. “Just from the humble beginnings of how it started and then it just took off.

“It’s more to her success than it is to ours, but it’s good to see her playing well and that people are getting behind her,” said Ganavas who can’t make the trip to Montreal.

Most of the group went to high school together, Ricciardi said. They’d always wanted to support somebody at the Australian Open.

“The Australian players are always on the main courts. We can’t afford to go into the main courts. And they’ve got the Fanatics for their support,” he said of a group that supports Australians athletes and teams.

“So we thought they don’t need us. Let’s go for someone else that doesn’t have a cheer squad and we’ll go from there and see what happens. We’re glad we did what we did.”