Eugenie Bouchard's tennis decline - Truth about date with fan and post-sport career

Eugenie Bouchard once looked to be the next big thing in the world of female tennis, but her dreams never came to fruition. The 30-year-old from Montreal, Quebec, made headlines when she made it all the way to the 2014 finals of Wimbledon as an outsider, and should her match with Petra Kvitová have ended in victory, her career may well have taken a different path.

However, the Canadian sensation ultimately ceded to the pressure of a first Grand Slam final on the courts of SW19, losing 3-6, 0-6 in a game which simply was not meant to be. Ten years on and Bouchard hasn't as much as came close to major victory, failing to make it to the final of any of the big four tournaments.

But what has happened in the life of Bouchard since her day in the south west London sun with Kvitova, and what is she up to nowadays? Here, The Express breaks down all you need to know about the tennis ace, from her tennis decline to her new career path...

A tennis decline

Bouchard trained with Nick Saviano in her teenage years before breaking into the ITF as a junior. While she went on to win the junior singles title at Wimbledon in 2012 - beating a now household name Elina Svitolina - she failed to replicate her younger successes on a senior level.

While she became the first Canadian player to make a Wimbledon final in 2014, breaking through onto the world stage, a humbling from Kvitova was the closest that fans would ever see her come to a Grand Slam final win. Many fans cite that Bouchard's decline from greatness came at the 2015 US Open - having to withdraw from her fourth-round match with Roberta Vinci after suffering a concussion through a fall in the locker room.

She played just one more match that year after struggling to recover from the injury, before subsequently dropping from the top 100 in early 2018. She has failed to pass the third round of a major tournament since the concussion, while other injury woes have also affected her growth in the sport.

Bouchard was absent from the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open in 2021 due to a tear in her right shoulder sustained during a first-round WTA match with Caroline Dolehide. A 17-month hiatus after surgery also forced her out of the 2022 Australian Open and French Open.

Once a top prospect in the tennis world, Bouchard is currently ranked 1,199 in the singles by the WTA, and 517 in the doubles - and has seemingly slowed down her efforts as she explores other avenues.

Double-standards

Earlier this year, Bouchard made headlines worldwide by calling out double-standards in the world of tennis. Her comments came after Jack Draper told British Vogue that he quite enjoys being in front of the camera, working on modelling away from the courts.

The 22-year-old said: "I quite enjoy being in front of the camera - if I'm looking good, that is." But the sentiment didn't sit right with Bouchard, who quickly took to X to suggest that she would have been heavily criticised should she have said the same thing at the height of her career.

She penned: "If I had said this 10 years ago I would have been crucified," accompanied by a laughing emoji. And fans of the tennis star were quick to agree with her assessment, with one writing: "The double standard is real," while another added: "You still would be today!" Thanks to her career, Bouchard has racked up a whopping 2.3million Instagram followers and often takes to social media to share snaps of herself donning bikinis and sharing professional snaps from the courts.

A date with a fan

Bouchard once agreed to go on a date with one of her fans following a social media bet. A few years ago, the Canadian had a wager with a fan dependent on the outcome of the Super Bowl - backing the Atlanta Falcons to win against the New England Patriots.

Explaining the bet on the Nothing Major podcast, Bouchard said: "I'm literally super bored, I tweeted, 'I knew Atlanta would win.' I was reading my Twitter replies, which I don't even normally do, and this one guy wrote, 'If the Patriots come back, we go on a date'.

"I publicly responded, 'Sure. This is like, at exactly when it was 28-3 at the end of the third quarter, I'm here like, there is no chance. Of course, Tom Brady works his magic, comes back, and then this story is everywhere." Eager to stay true to her word, Bouchard admitted that she had to research the X user - who had a profile picture of Tiger Woods.

She added: "We had to firstly research who this was because by the way, his profile picture was Tiger Woods and I was like, 'This is honestly not Tiger Woods, which means it's a super fan, which means this is dangerous'. After getting the all-clear, the two went on a date to a Brooklyn Nets game admitting that the man in question - John Goehrke - turned out to be a " good-looking guy". Unfortunately, the date would go no further, with Bouchard finding love with Jack Brinkley-Cook before reportedly splitting earlier this summer.

A new career?

While Bouchard is still playing tennis, she has also found admiration for a completely new sport in Pickleball. The game is incredibly similar to tennis and is played on a doubles-sized badminton court and Pickleball England say of its rules: "Points can only be scored by the serving side.

"You win a point if the defending side does not manage to return the ball, hits the ball out, does not let the serve ball bounce, volleys in the non-volley zone, or is hit by the ball. The game ends when one of the parties gets 11 points, with a 2-point lead."

Speaking about her move to the sport with TSN earlier this year, Bouchard said: "I felt totally out of my league at the beginning of the year and it was a shock, but now I've trained and I fell like I'm a little bit closer, and getting a little better." Elsewhere, Bouchard has also been sharing her knowledge of the courts as a pundit on the Tennis Channel.

A famous spat with Maria Sharapova

Throughout her tennis career, Bouchard was involved in a war of words with Maria Sharapova - jabbing the Russian after she popped for banned substances in 2016. Sharapova served a 15-month ban for testing positive for meldonium, but Bouchard believed that she should have been booted from the sport for food.

She said: "It's so unfair to all the other players who do it the right way and are true/ So, I think from the WTA it sends the wrong message to young kids - cheat and we'll welcome you back with open arms. I don't think that's right and [she's] definitely not someone I can say I look up to anymore because that's definitely ruined it for me a little bit."

Bouchard later went on to best Sharapova at the Madrid Open of 2017, with the Russian star refusing to comment on her opponent's prior exchange, saying: "I don't have anything to say - I am way above that." Bouchard also faced Dayana Yastremska at the same event last April - another star who was banned for a failed prohibited substance test.

After her win, Bouchard took to X to write: "There's something about playing dopers in Madrid," in a sly jab at both Sharapova and Yastremska. However, the post was deleted shortly after.