Three years after Genie Bouchard broke out as a teen phenom at the Australian Open – where she made the semifinals as the No.30 seed – the Canadian is looking to capture that magic to jumpstart her tennis career once again.
“I feel great,” she said at the Stamford Plaza hotel, ahead of kicking off her 2017 campaign at the Brisbane International.
The 22-year-old is set to play Sunday against American Shelby Rogers, marking Bouchard’s debut at the Brisbane event.
“I heard it was an amazing tournament, so I finally decided to come,” said Bouchard of Brisbane, who made the final in Hobart last year prior to the Australian Open.
She catapulted up the rankings in 2014 on the back of a fearless baseline game and soaring confidence, reaching the semifinals of both the Australian and French Opens, before finishing runner-up to Petra Kvitova at Wimbledon. It catapulted her to a career-high of No.5 in the world.
But after a quarterfinal finish at the Australian Open in 2015, she lost her form, at one point losing 14 of 18 matches. She would make the fourth round of the US Open that year, only to suffer a freak fall in the locker-room that would effectively end her season.
While 2016 was not a total disappointment, it wasn’t the kind of revamp Bouchard had hoped for. She was stuck somewhere between her 2014 and 2015 self. In 2017, she hopes it’s much more of the former.
“I’m hoping for a better year than I had in 2016,” she said. “I want health, happiness … and just to enjoy every moment. It goes by really fast.”
Bouchard has rejoined forces with famed coach Thomas Hogstedt, whom she had worked with for part of 2015 and 2016. He will seek to further develop her consistent baseline power and her ability to squeak over the finish line – she was 13-8 in three-set matches in 2014.
One of those three-set losses came to Rogers, and Bouchard is 0-2 if you add the ITF event they faced off at in 2011. But the American, ranked No.59, will have to work hard to beat Bouchard, who enters Brisbane as the world No.46 and the favourite in this tussle.
The winner of this match will take on either No.6 seed Elina Svitolina or surprise Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig in the second round.