Eugenie Bouchard: 'I have a new coach, I have been working hard'
The 24-year-old Canadian Eugenie Bouchard is a former world no. 5 who had amazing results in 2014, reaching the semi-final at the Australian Open and Roland Garros before playing for the title at Wimbledon at such a young age. Instead of staying on the winning course, Eugenie failed to repeat those results in the next couple of seasons, staying inside the top-50 but never repeating the results from her best season. Bouchard played in just two WTA finals in the last four seasons and she struggled to find the form and consistency, not being focus on tennis all the time and crumbling under the burden of expectations from the entire tennis world.
The Canadian hit rock bottom in 2018, barely staying in the top-200 and dropping out from the top-100 for the first time since April 2013 before returning into the elite group after the last event of the season in Luxembourg where she played in the semi-final, only her second of the season. Competing at the Hawaii Open, Eugenie showed the glimpse of old form again, beating Vandeweghe and Muguruza before wasting a match point against Elise Mertens in the title match. Carried by this momentum, Bouchard will now travel to Auckland, entering the ASB Classic where she will face a very strong field of players and test her skills before the first Major of the season in Melbourne.
Eugenie played in Auckland only once, six years ago when she was only 19, losing in the opening round to Elena Vesnina. Confident about her improvements and desire to compete against the best players in the world again, Bouchard will try to carry the momentum from the end of 2018 into the new season and find the aggressive tennis that was her trademark under the guidance of Michael Joyce with whom she started to work in October.
"I feel good," Bouchard told the Radio Sport Breakfast. "I have a new coach I like, I've been working hard. There are no guarantees for results but I definitely want to push myself and do whatever I can. I feel like I ended the season well, so I want to bring that momentum into 2019. For a year after that 2014, my life changed. I was suddenly in the public eye and I felt tremendous pressure to keep up my level, keep up the results. But since then, I have learned a lot. I feel like I have gone through this roller coaster of life within my career and I feel like the pressure is ultimately just what you put on yourself.
So I need to have a clear mind, not put pressure on myself and just try to play free. I like to be aggressive and take control of the points and I felt like maybe at times the past couple of years I wasn't. The field at the ASB Classis is super strong, especially being at the beginning of the year where even more unexpected things happen. It will be interesting. Those who train hard in the off-season maybe will be rewarded. I've got to keep working hard for the next week or so and then get ready to play."
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2PYAZDu
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