It's the question asked most often on the WTA Tour this season: "What's wrong with Genie Bouchard?"
The 21-year-old is off to a slow start in 2015, winning only seven of 16 matches. She arrived in Paris having lost seven of her last eight, and to women she should be beating easily:
- No. 85 Lesia Tsurenko (Round of 16, Indian Wells)
- No. 113 Tatjana Maria (Round of 64, Miami)
- No. 66 Lauren Davis (Round of 32, Charleston)
- No. 69 Alexandra Dulgheru and No. 104 Andreea Mitu (Fed Cup)
- No. 23 Barbora Strycova (Round of 64, Madrid)
- No. 10 Carla Suarez Navarro (Round of 16, Rome)
Bouchard set the bar extremely high in 2014, taking the WTA by storm, and playing her best tennis in Grand Slams - her 19 wins at majors led the tour. But Bouchard played a lot of tennis last year, and a heavy workload and travel schedule seemingly took its toll.
Low Profile
Ahead of the French Open, Bouchard, one of the more popular women with the media on tour, is laying low. While everyone else is concerned about her game, the Montreal native isn't. In fact, she's looking at her struggles as a valuable learning experience and is heading into Roland Garros with perspective.
Chilly mornings don't stop me from sweating ? #happytobeback @rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/5Ds7cGmkKf
— Genie Bouchard (@geniebouchard) May 23, 2015
Bouchard said:
I don’t really have expectations for this tournament. It's been a tough couple of months, I'm not panicking, but I'm just taking it one match at a time, and trying to enjoy it as well.
It’s been tough, but it's taught me patience, first of all. It's taught me that not everything will go smoothly. I have to accept the lows just as I accept the highs. I feel like everyone has been kind of panicking a little bit, but I'm pretty calm about it, and I'm fine, even if I lost a couple of matches, you know, I can get over that. Life is still very, very good. For me, it's great. I'm at a Grand Slam, I'm happy to be here no matter what happens, I'll just try my best.
Bouchard, ranked sixth in the world and in Paris, will face France's Kristina Mladenovic on Tuesday. She'll be up against the 44th-ranked woman in the world, a decidedly pro-Mladenovic crowd, and herself.
But Grand Slams are where Bouchard plays her best, most aggressive tennis, and the French Open is an opportunity for her to turn her season around - to put all the doubts to rest.
Bouchard was a semifinalist at the Australian and French Opens last year, made the Wimbledon final, and lost in the fourth round at the US Open. She's played the most exceptional tennis of her short career at majors, and made the Australian Open quarterfinals to open 2015. The bigger the stage, the better her game.
Bouchard's got a favorable draw. She beat Mladenovic in straight sets in their only career meeting, and a seeded opponent awaits at the earliest in the third round. A quarterfinals matchup with Petra Kvitova, who Bouchard has never defeated, looms, but if she's going to beat her, it'll happen at a major.
A couple of months from now, we won't be asking, "What's wrong with Genie?" We'll look back at the French Open and say, "That's where Genie turned it around." Bouchard plays her best when the stakes are highest, after all.
