Simply put, 2014 was the year of surprisesin tennis. New faces were crowned champions; old warhorses rediscovered their form, and some really talented wiz-kids made their presence felt in the sport’s biggest stages. One of these wiz-kids is Eugenie Bouchard who made heads turn her way, with consistent power-packed performances. She qualified for her maiden year-end championships at Singapore to end the season as she began it – on a high. The way the Canadian had been playing this year, it looked as if she were in the tennis circuit for years. It seems unreal to believe that she made her breakthrough just a year ago. She may have not won any majors this year, but the promise distinctly looms large in the near horizon. If Bouchard carry forward and build on her professional zeniths of the current season, it seems a fair bet for her to lift a Grand Slam in the 2015 season. Her triumphs has come by way of diligence and painstaking nurturing to build and refine on it. Missteps did come on way but her rebounding from all the pitfalls more than recompensed for her stumbles. In that respect, 2014 is her biggest learning curve, aside of her breakthrough year of 2013. Bouchard have been individualistic and unique in her game. But there is one major factor that that determines and governs her performances – aggression. In several key matches, her aggression – both in game as well as in mental outlook – proved to be the distinguishing factor between her and opponent; irrespective of how tougher the latter looked to be on paper. The rise of Bouchard has been justifiably exhilarating, but there were a few prices to be paid as well. Bouchard, the 20-year-old ended up winless in her three round-robin matches at the WTA finals. Bouchard has become the first Canadian tennis player to reach No. 6 in the WTA world rankings. The 20-year-old has been in the top 10 since July, when she moved from 13th to seventh. With that jump she surpassed Carling Bassett-Seguso’s Canadian record ranking of eighth. She reached the Wimbledon final and the semifinals of the Australian Open and French Open in her breakout season. She may have made it to her maiden Grand Slam final - Wimbledon - but as her respective results show, she was methodically outclassed by more experienced opponents. Her inexperience may have been the bane for this year. But come next year, fuelled by sheerness of these triumphs, expectations will surely rise further. Not many players have been able to replicate their initial year’s successes, struggling to retain the clean rhythm which propelled them to the forefront in the first place. Be it first time majors’ winners like Petra Kvitova, Ana Ivanovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova or Maria Sharapova. Or those making it to the penultimate stages of majors and impressing everyone around, even if unable to win the title, like Sloane Stephens, Angelique Kerber or Dominika Cibulkova. Many assurances of the sport’s future are held by Genie. These assurances notwithstanding, it is her counter-acting responses to the expectations that will solely determine the road ahead for the Montreal residents to maintain her heightened sway.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 07:10:04 +0000
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