Genie Bouchard and the pressure of starting over

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As we watch 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu try to re-establish herself at the top of the women’s tennis, it’s hard not to look back and compare with her compatriot Genie Bouchard.

Bouchard, who broke out in 2014 at age 20 as she reached the Wimbledon final and rocketed to No. 5 in the world, had a similar roller-coaster ride.

She, like Andreescu, tried to drop down to the lower levels of tennis to get some momentum and climb her way back up when she began to struggle and her ranking dropped.

Actually, she tried it a few times. But it was like her brain exploded. She just couldn’t do it.

Drop down doesn’t pay off for Andreescu in Oeiras

It’s a tougher gig than it appears. You have to get over the fact that you feel like you left that behind long ago, and shouldn’t even be there. You have to deal with a completely different pressure – that of having to win, and win easily, against lower-ranked competition who see you as vulnerable and a nice scalp to go out and get.

And you have to put aside the the fact that instead of thousands watching you – millions, really, around the world – knowing you’ve always shone on those big occasions and those big stages, you’re on a small court with a few retirees in the stands, having to schlep your own tennis balls after a missed first serve and dependent on mostly volunteer line judges.

You can talk a good game, say things you know are true and try to wish them into being. Try to convince yourself that even though you love the big occasions and the big crowds, what you NEED is no spotlight, no crowds, no attention.

But then, there’s doing it.

Really interesting stuff from Canadian Eugenie Bouchard- really in a rut right now, losing her first match today at the Volvo Car Open– good take on what she needs to do to get back on track. pic.twitter.com/KBFrW3Vb8n

— Scott Eisberg (@SEisbergWCIV) April 3, 2018

Tough times at Indian Harbour Beach

The first time Bouchard played down was in 2017, when she was still close to the top 50 but after first-round losses at Indian Wells and Miami. She played an $80,000 ITF at Indian Harbour Beach, Fla on the Har-Tru. It was her first tournament below the WTA level since 2013.

It was a pretty big deal for that tournament, but Bouchard nearly went out in the first round fo qualifier Brianna Morgan, ranked No. 601. In the quarterfinals, she wrested just three games from wild card Victoria Duval, ranked No. 896 at the time.

Bouchard squeaks through at Florida ITF

Two years later, she played Andreescu at a now-defunct Oracle Challenger in Newport Beach, on her way back from the Australian Open. This was just six weeks before Andreescu’s Indian Wells title. Bouchard was seeded No. 3 and when she ran into her countrywoman in the quarterfinals, she flat-out tanked.

Bouchard won just one match in her next 14 tournaments through to another Challenger in Houston that November, where she retired after three games in the quarterfinals. Her ranking dropped outside the top 250.

The Glatch Effect

By the next year, the pattern was similar. Bouchard began the year well in Auckland, but then she crashed out in the final round of the Australian Open qualifying to Martina Trevisan, and stopped off in Newport Beach on the way home.

There, she managed just three games against American Alexa Glatch – a former top junior rendered practically immobile by a chronic knee injury. On the other side of the 2020 pandemic stoppage, after impressing at a WTA event in Istanbul and making the third round of the fall edition of Roland Garros and getting back into the top 150, she met Glatch again at an ITF in Macon, Georgia.

She beat Glatch. But the stress she put on herelf in doing it likely was the big reason she pulled an abdominal muscle and had to retire in the next round, down a set and 3-0 to No. 325-ranked Katie Volynets. That ended her season.

Bouchard played some after that, mostly on wild cards. But it was just too tough a road back.

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