Eugenie Bouchard's tennis hiatus is set to end sometime next week, with the former World No. 5 sharing a sneak peek prepping for her long-awaited return.
Bouchard, one of the highest-ranked Canadian tennis players in history, celebrated her 30th birthday earlier this year. She switched to pickleball at the end of last year and played her first professional tournament in 2024.
In spite of becoming a pickleball convert, Bouchard did not formally retire from tennis. She played her last WTA tournament in Guadalajara last September before taking a break from the rigors of professional tennis.
The former Wimbledon finalist has played in a few exhibitions, most notably against Caroline Wozniacki, to mark the opening weekend of the ATP tournament in Dallas in early February, showing that she is still committed to tennis.
"Tennis soon."
There was speculation that Bouchard might not return to tennis amid growing drawbacks related to scheduling and injuries, with Spain's Garbine Muguruza recently retiring from the sport at the age of 30.
But Bouchard, whose solitary WTA title came during her 2014 breakthrough season, will end her indefinite break from tennis and is reportedly set to compete at the W75 Zephyrhills ITF tournament in Florida, which begins on May 7th.
Because she is currently ranked outside the world's Top 300, she can't get into tour-level tournaments without a wild card. Her ranking is also too low to play in qualifying. She doesn't merit a special ranking since her absence was not injury-related.
That means Bouchard will need to grind on the lower tiers to build her ranking or rely on a wild card in top-tier events. She has played just 46 matches across all levels since the start of 2021, which suggests she might not be playing a full schedule now that she is a multi-sport athlete, juggling between tennis and pickleball tours.
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