Eugenie Bouchard is a talented tennis player, but she's making her mark on a different type of a court - a pickleball court.
The Canadian reached the Wimbledon final in 2014, as a result of which she finished the year ranked 7th on the WTA Tour. However, after initial breakthrough, her career didn't develop as many anticipated.
Bouchard has been unable to finish a year inside of the world's Top 40 ever since, and in the past five seasons, she has barely competed on the WTA Tour, often struggling with injuries, and spending a lot of time away from the Tour.
After not spending a lot of time on the tennis court, in September 2023, she made a shocking decision to commit to pickleball professionally for the 2024 PPA Tour season.
In January, she made her debut in a professional pickleball tournament, but that didn't really go well, as Bouchard lost all three matches that she played at the event.
Since then, she talked about how difficult the sport is, and she also spent a lot of time preparing to be more competitive the next time she steps onto the pickleball court.
She did just that, and it paid of at the North Carolina Cup, where Bouchard teamed up with Eric Roddy in the mixed doubles tournament, in a hope to do well at the tournament.
The team succeeded on a mission to advance and Bouchard on her own mini-mission to win first professional pickleball match, as they made it through the first round of the tournament with a strong performance.
Bouchard and Roddy outplayed their opponents 11-5, 11-3, which meant the Canadian tennis player got her first-ever professional win in pickleball. She was happy to share that on her social media platforms, also sharing pictures from her gym session after the match, not hiding the excitement.
0 Comments