'Not a funeral, a celebration': Bouchard makes peace with tennis farewell

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Earlier this year, when Eugenie Bouchard decided to retire from tennis this summer in Montreal, she was stressed and couldn’t wait to put it all behind her.

“And then I got such an outpouring of support and so many people reached out to me, and I saw so much positivity out in the universe,” Bouchard told reporters last week at the Mubadala Citi DC Open. “I was, like, ‘OK, wait, let me embrace this time. It’s such a unique time in my life and something I have never done before and will never do again -- unless I retire from my normal office job in 40 years.’

“So I’m looking forward to it. I want to soak up every moment of love and tennis and the hard stuff on the court, the amazing stuff off the court. I want to make it like a celebration, not a funeral and see everybody.”

She started playing tennis at age five at Tennis Canada’s National Training Centre in Montreal and now Bouchard, 31, will retire from the sport at the Omnium Banque Nationale présenté par Rogers as one of the most decorated Canadian tennis players ever.

Bouchard was the 2012 Wimbledon junior champion and, one year later, she was the 2013 WTA Newcomer of the Year. She peaked impossibly early in 2014, reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open and, at the age of 20, the finals at Wimbledon. She was the first Canadian-born player representing Canada to play in a Grand Slam singles final.

That spring she collected her only WTA Tour-level title, the Nürnberger Versicherungscup, defeating Karolina Pliskova in the final. Later that year she would find herself ranked a career-high No. 5. She was also a six-time member of Canada’s Billie Jean King Cup team and, in 2016, an Olympian.

“That was really a special experience for me,” Bouchard said of her time in Rio de Janeiro. “Looking back, I can’t believe I almost didn’t play, because at the time it was the whole Zika virus. Very glad I pushed through and played because I would have regretted it.

“Any match I ever won was a positive moment. Playing in really cool places, like in Rome on the statue court, huge crowd. Playing in front of the crowd has always been really special and interacting with fans after matches. I always take the time to do that and appreciate them, because they give us a job. I think they appreciate that from me too.”

And that two-way relationship will continue as the Canadian continues to rock the still-burgeoning Bouchard Brand. Her second career is already well underway.

Bouchard, who has 2.3 million followers on Instagram, has made the pivot to pickleball. She was approached nearly two years ago at the US Open by the Professional Pickleball Association Tour and subsequently signed a three-year deal.

GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images

Bouchard, partnered with Andy Roddick, played a series of high-profile matches against Andre Agassi and wife Steffi Graf in Las Vegas that were televised by ESPN. She has her own signature paddle but has experienced a steep learning curve in the sport that combines elements of tennis, table tennis and badminton.

Her cameo tennis appearance in Washington, D.C. was a first-round doubles match alongside Clervie Ngounoue. They lost to Venus Williams and Hailey Baptiste in straight sets but played to a full house. Bouchard’s last WTA-level match came last year in Toronto -- she lost in qualifying to Moyuka Uchijima. She recently played the Newport WTA 125, losing in the first round of qualifying to Anna Rogers.

Victoria Mboko, a rising 18-year-old from Canada, said she owes Bouchard a debt.

“She was quite a big role model when she made the finals of Wimbledon, that was a really amazing thing -- first Canadian woman to do something like that,” Mboko said. “She kind of paved the way a little bit and kind of put Canada on the map in women’s tennis.

“It’s really sad to see her go. I feel like she’s really young to retire.”

Of course, Bouchard has some regrets -- “many” -- but she’ll save the specifics for her book. Ultimately, the physical wear and tear, she said, is what sent her to the sideline.

“It just takes so much dedication, sacrifice, and dedicating your entire life to have a chance to make it.” Bouchard said. “That’s something I have done my whole life thus far. For me, at a certain point, that’s just not worth it anymore.

“I feel like I kind of did the whole spectrum of positive, negative, good results, bad results, and I guess that’s what life is too, right? So tennis was a little kind of sample of what real life is.”

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