On Saturday Eugenie Bouchard won her first singles title on the WTA tour — tennis’s highest level — with a three-set victory over Karolina Pliskova in Nuremberg, Germany.
And her timing couldn’t have been better.
With the first round of the French Open getting underway on Monday, Canada’s top-ranked female will look to carry that momentum and confident play into the season’s second Slam.
The 20 year-old is one of three Canadian women in the main draw, joining Fed Cup teammates Sharon Fichman and Aleksandra Wozniak.
It was at last year’s French Open that Bouchard opened a lot of eyes during a hard-fought loss to Maria Sharapova on centre court in the second round, and her career has been on a steady climb since. As one of the rising stars of the sport, she enters the 2014 edition in a drastically different position. No longer the plucky upstart, Bouchard is now facing a tennis world in which she enters most matches these days with a sizeable target on her back, which Canada’s Fed Cup captain Sylvain Bruneau calls par for the course on the road to the top.
“It’s very different in tennis when you’re being hunted as opposed to hunting,” he says on the phone from Paris, “But as you climb higher in the rankings that’s a scenario that you expect to happen. It’s good news when you step on the court and are expected to win. That’s what you want.”
It’s something Bouchard has openly embraced — and not just since the Sharapova match, or her storybook run to the Australian Open semis in January. Two years ago as an 18-year old, at a time when most girls at her level were focusing on moving on to the pro tour, she continued to play in juniors, where she was the top-ranked player, winning Wimbledon among other titles.
“She purposely put herself in that position as a junior to become more familiar with being the person expected to win,” Bruneau explains. “If you want to be as good as Eugenie wants to be then you have to. It takes time to get used to those new shoes, so to speak.”
Flash-forward to today and Bouchard, after (briefly) enjoying her big win in Nuremberg, will be heading to Roland Garros as the 18th seed where she’ll be the favourite to advance against her opponent, Israel’s Sahar Peer. A tough first-round matchup, Peer has been ranked as high as 11, and is a consistent player who moves well across the court. They have met three times before with Bouchard victorious in each match, the most recent being in March in Acapulco, though it will still take an assertive performance to advance to the second round.
One thing that bodes well for Bouchard is that she’s put in a ton of work over the past year with regards to her fitness, a huge asset as she goes deeper in tournaments.
“Her game is getting bigger. She’s becoming a better athlete, stronger physically, and I think it shows in her overall game,” says Bruneau. “She was always an aggressive player, taking the ball earlier, but I think you’ll see a more athletic and more powerful Eugenie as time goes on.”
To further prepare for the big stage at Roland Garros, Bouchard has arrived in Europe earlier than last year, her first full-time season on the pro tour, and including her fresh WTA title win has already been playing on clay for over a month competing in four tournaments. “It’s good timing,” says Bruneau. “And after today she’s played five matches in the last week. It’s the perfect scenario to arrive to the French Open prepared and with confidence.”
Another Canadian looking to make noise is Montreal’s Sharon Fichman. The 23 year-old has earned a reputation as a strong doubles player (a format in which she won this tournament as a junior), and received an automatic entry to the main draw for the first time, a surefire sign of her progression as a singles player. She too faces a tough first-round opponent, sixth-seed and former world no.1 Jelena Jankovic. The two have played each other before, at last year’s Rogers Cup, and it was a competitive match.
Fichman is incredibly fun to watch, an aggressive competitor whose in-your-face game belies her relatively small frame.
“She’s very feisty, and has always been,” says Bruneau, who first began working with Fichman when she was 13. “My hat goes off to her because she has really changed her approach over the last year or two. She’s really developed a more aggressive style; she used to be more of a retriever and looking back one thing I would have never is expected is the way she reinvented her game. She used to play really far behind the baseline, hitting with a lot of spin on her groundstrokes. If someone had told me that at 23 she would be taking the ball really early and driving it, I would have been surprised, but she’s put in some really good work. She’s a very smart girl and is a bit more poised on the court these days. I think she sees things with more clarity. Anything is possible with her.”
And don’t sleep on Aleksandra Wozniak, who was victorious in her third and final qualifying match on Saturday morning, securing her spot in the main draw. Putting in a strong season after missing last year due to injury, Wozniak- a former 21st-ranked player with top-15 talent, will try to keep the ball rolling in the first round against 27th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova. Wozniak was a driving force behind Canada’s Fed Cup win last month, propelling the nation into the world group 1 stage for the first time ever.
That experience has helped all of these players, says Bruneau, while conversely their individual success is helping Canada earn a name as one of the top tennis nations.
“You can only do well at Fed Cup if you have players who are playing at a high level on the Tour, and if you look at the other seven countries in the world group 1, which we are now in for the first time in our history, they all have that so it’s something of a prerequisite.
“On the other hand, I think when you play FedCup and experience playing those high emotion matches in front of those crowds, there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that and I think it makes you grow as a player, and I really believe that. For Alex, Sharon, and Eugenie, I think Fed Cup is a formative experience.”
Here’s hoping this year’s French Open will be, too.
