Eugenie Bouchard: From Tennis Star to Social Media Sensation

Eugenie Bouchard won two titles, one in singles and one in doubles (REUTERS/Henry Romero)

She is ranked 524th in the WTA rankings and has more followers on Instagram than all the women in the Top Ten. Eugenie Bouchard was the talk of the tennis world ten years ago, when she built her best season, reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open and Roland Garros, in addition to the final of Wimbledon 2014, where she fell to Czech Petra Kvitova in straight sets. Her excellent year led her to number 5 in the world, her best record to date, but she has not played in a Grand Slam since 2020 and her constant injuries have kept her from playing a place on the circuit.

That hasn’t lowered her popularity on social media, but quite the opposite. She made a confession that opened the debate about the clothing that players wear on the court and how it affected her life to have more than two million followers: “Tennis is a great sport for sexual appeal. We wear short skirts, we wear sleeveless shirts. It’s fun to turn on the TV and see that. For example, I was able to immediately close big sponsorship deals and I’ve been asked to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated in swimwear. Exploring that path was definitely on my list. It’s part of who I am, because I love it.”

In her statements for the Not Alone podcast, Bouchard stressed that her physical attributes helped her in her career. “The fact that people found me attractive improved my contracts and made more people want to come and see me around the world. And I think that is good for tennis, for women’s sport,” she was quoted as saying by the specialized media outlet Séptimo Game.

“Why would I put myself in a box? Why don’t we try to be bigger or better, transcend tennis or explore other things? Tennis is the only thing that keeps me busy, but it can’t be the only thing I do in my life. So I found it really interesting to be in magazines or do fashion stuff and see that I really liked those things too. It just expands my ‘fan base,’ my audience, which in turn helps me get better deals and offers,” said the 30-year-old Canadian.

Eugenie Bouchard is 30 years old (Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports)

Her comments were the subject of “debate”, according to the Spanish daily Marca, while the daily Mundo Deportivo and the portal 20 Minutos said they caused “controversy”. The newspaper Estadio Deportivo added: “Genie Bouchard thinks that exploiting the sexuality of tennis players and sportswomen in general is something positive for women’s sport.”

It all happens just a few months after what happened at the 2023 Madrid Masters 1000, when the organizers were criticized because the ball girls wore crop tops and short skirts. Due to negative opinions, the latter was changed to long shorts. “It is a feminized way of treating girls versus boys who do not dress like that. In the end, it is a form of sexist violence that is so widespread because people do not even realize it,” said the spokesperson for the Association of Women in Professional Sport, Pilar Calvo, in statements made by CNN.

Back in 2021, former German tennis player Andrea Petkovic, who was once a Top Ten player, had spoken out about the attention focused on the women’s circuit: “After matches, we girls always receive annoying messages and comments on social media. I have doubts about whether the same thing happens on the men’s circuit. People always discuss the way we dress or the way we wear our hair.”

Bouchard announced that she will also play pickleball

Because of this, Eugenie Bouchard’s quotes did not go unnoticed, with the background that in 2023 she had said that she was in a position to leave tennis, a sport that gave her a little less than seven million dollars, according to the WTA estimates: “I could live comfortably the rest of my life without hitting a ball. I could relax the rest of my life, but I’m not like that. That’s why I achieved the successes that I have, because I’m a fighter and I love to work hard. And I could sit on my couch and watch Netflix and that sounds attractive, no doubt, but after two days, I would go crazy. I needed a project, something to do and it was like ‘as long as I still physically feel young, why not continue doing tennis?’ I will pursue other projects later, but now let me see what I can do until I decide not to play anymore. ”

So far this year, she has only played five matches between the three singles matches and two doubles matches played at the ITF/USTA W75 in Florida, United States, last May. In September 2023, she announced that she would start practicing pickleball, a discipline that combines elements of tennis, badminton and table tennis. She has won two titles in tennis, one in singles (WTA 250 in Nürnberg 2014) and the other in doubles (WTA 250 in Auckland 2019).

Eugenie Bouchard’s slender figureShe has more followers on social media than all the tennis players in the Top TenShe is usually very active on her social mediaBouchard has more than 2,300,000 followers on InstagramShe reached the final of Wimbledon 2014Genie Bouchard was once number 5 in the world
2024-07-03 23:04:00
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