Eugenie Bouchard's pickleball career has been put on hold after the former WTA world No. 5 sustained a freak eye injury.
Bouchard was one of the most popular players on the WTA Tour when she competed regularly. The 30-year-old peaked during the 2014 season, finishing as the runner-up at that year's Wimbledon Championships.
Despite being widely tipped to regularly challenge for Grand Slams after that achievement, Bouchard never returned to the level she found ten years ago, which led to some unpleasant criticism from the media.
The Canadian reflected on that experience during an episode of Caroline Garcia's Tennis Insider Podcast, mentioning how challenging it was to cope with enhanced expectations in 2015, especially because mental health did not get spoken about as it does now.
Although Bouchard has not officially retired from tennis, she is currently focused on pickleball. At this stage, it is unknown whether the former Grand Slam finalist will ever return to full-time.
Bouchard has signed up for the third edition of the Pickleball Slam, the most high-profile Pickleball match played each year. She will team up with Andy Roddick against the legendary married duo of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf.
Pickleball Slam 3 is scheduled for February of next year, but the trash-talking has already begun. Roddick won the first iteration of the Pickleball Slam with Agassi in 2023 and said Agassi abandoned him by drafting in Graf.
The eight-time Grand Slam champion responded by indicating that he and Graf would likely target Roddick during the match because of Bouchard's greater pickleball experience. She responded that Agassi sounded like he would be scared.
Fans will be grateful that the Pickleball Slam 3 is not until next year because Bouchard might have missed the event had it been next week after an accident caused her to sustain an eye injury.
Bouchard announced on X (formerly Twitter) that her partner had shanked a ball straight into her left eye during a training session, and she required urgent care to treat the unexpected issue.
"Got hit in the eye with a pickleball during training today. It was a shank off my partner’s paddle straight into the eye. Went to urgent care and have a scratched cornea. The things we do for this sport! Will be healed in a matter of days."
Below are both pictures Bouchard posted after the injury. The first shows her unable to open her left eye, while the other shows the pickleball star wearing an eyepatch over it.
Although accidents on the doubles court in pickleball or tennis are rare, they can be particularly dangerous because of the close proximity between the players, as Bouchard's eye injury proved.
An infamous example of an accidental eye injury in tennis was in the 2017 Davis Cup tie between Canada and Great Britain when a teenage Denis Shapovalov smacked a ball away that hit the umpire in the eye.
Despite the eye being heavily bruised at the time, the umpire made a full recovery. That would have undoubtedly come as a great relief to Shapovalov.
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