TORONTO — She took to centre court at the Rogers Cup in front of an adoring, home crowd, pleased to be there, yet confident of her place.
Across the net was Serena Williams, one of the most dominant women’s tennis players of this or any generation and perhaps the most famous female athlete of all-time.
It was a moment that Eugenie Bouchard, the great, blonde hope of Canadian women’s tennis, has been working towards since she started playing competitively at age eight in Montreal — 11 years and a lifetime ago.
A few things to put the picture in proper focus: the stadium appearance at Rexall Centre was on Monday night as part of a pre-tournament exhibition match, not a Friday night quarter-final under the lights.
And it wasn’t a head-to-head contest between Bouchard, the 19-year-old who has created her share of buzz in her first season on the WTA Tour and Williams, the living legend.
Instead Bouchard was teamed with retired WTA star and four-time Rogers Cup champion Monica Seles while Serena Williams was abetted by her sister Venus, who between them have won 23 major championships.
So the appearance on the main stage was staged.
Results & Order of Play: Men (Montreal) | Women (Toronto)
A thrill nonetheless.
But there’s something to be said about Bouchard even being on the court with those three, exhibition or not. It says that a lot of hopes are being bundled up in her beguiling package of fast-emerging professional success, Canadian passport, and coltish good looks.
Before the match Bouchard sat down for a press conference with her ‘peers.’ She looked on admiringly as Seles easily fastened her microphone to her warm-up jacket.
“Wow, you’re a pro,” Bouchard joked.
“Don’t worry, you will be too in a few years,” said Seles.
It’s not like Bouchard was overwhelmed by the moment but she appreciated the ‘one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other’ nature of it.
“It’s just so cool,’ said Bouchard. “I mean, obviously I have watched all of them play and I have great respect for the champions here. I haven’t played with or against them, it will be a fun experience. Hopefully maybe Monica and I can have a chance against the famous Williams sisters.”
Bouchard’s hero growing up was Maria Sharapova, citing her win over Serena at Wimbledon in 2004 as one of the reasons she pursued tennis as seriously as she did.
“It looked so cool, I wanted to be on that stage and do exactly what she was doing and play all those big tournaments,” she said earlier this year. “That’s when I thought … I want to make a career out of it and here I am.”
The challenge for Bouchard is making the great leap from a promising up-and-comer to a real factor, someone who can think about winning the Rogers Cup or Wimbledon, for that matter. There is a Canadian tendency to harvest heroes before their time; such is the appetite for homegrown talent.
But she’s gaining attention as someone who might justify the hype and the hope.
“She’s the future of tennis, she has a great game,” said Serena in the kind of nearly standard blanket compliment Bouchard has earned from the likes of Billie Jean King to Martina Navratilova and Martina Hingis, among others on her rise to a career-high No. 55 in the WTA rankings in her rookie season, up from 302 at the end of 2011.
She has an athletic return game and can pound ground strokes deep, which along with a powerful serve makes her the kind of complete player that experts see as a potential major winner.
Serena won her first major in 1999 and remains the most dominant player in the game today. She’s seen a lot of players like Bouchard arrive on Tour with promise and leave without quite fulfilling it.
“You never know who that special player is who is going to come out and do so well, because tennis is a sport where anything can happen,” said Williams, the No. 1 seed this week.
Bouchard’s resume is real: She did become the first Canadian to win junior Wimbledon in 2012; she did follow that up in her first year as a professional by advancing to the third round there this past July, including a centre court win over then No. 12- and former No. 1 — Ana Ivanovic.
But the reality is making the next step – delivering on evident promise – is the toughest trick of all in professional sports.
On Tuesday the real work begins as she will be on centre court again but this time in a singles match-up against Alisa Kleybanova of Russia, and it will count.
Kleybanova comes to Toronto without any hometown hype, but on the comeback trail after falling from her career-high No. 20 ranking she attained in 2011 before being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
If she gets through the match, she’ll face a rested Petra Kvitova, the No. 6 seed and defending Rogers Cup champion.
It will only get harder from there. The challenge for Bouchard is making sure a Monday night exhibition with legends isn’t the highlight of her week.