Greater than a decade after she first performed Serena Williams in a WTA match, Eugenie Bouchard remembers the worry.
It was the spherical of 32 in Cincinnati in August 2013. Bouchard was 19 and a relative newcomer on tour. Williams was, nicely, Serena Williams, a winner of 16 main singles titles on the time. Bouchard was positive she was going to embarrass herself and did what any nervous teenager would do — she known as her mother.
“I simply bear in mind calling her and saying, ‘I am completely terrified,'” Bouchard informed ESPN final week. “I used to be positive I used to be going to lose 6-0, 6-0.”
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Bouchard ended up taking the primary set earlier than in the end shedding the match, nevertheless it’s what she felt within the lead-up that she remembers most vividly all these years later. And, she stated, that very same visceral worry of the unknown, and of creating a idiot of herself, is strictly how she is feeling now as she is about to start her profession as knowledgeable pickleball participant this week on the PPA Masters occasion in Palm Springs, California.
The match, which will get underway Wednesday, marks Bouchard’s first-ever formal pickleball competitors — and the primary she has ever attended in any capability — and he or she’s taking part in singles, doubles and blended doubles. However this time it isn’t simply the on-court uncertainties which might be scaring her.
“I am like that child going to a brand new faculty who goes to the cafeteria and would not have any mates or know the place something is,” Bouchard stated. “I am utterly nervous. I am a wreck. I’m nervous for enjoying, after all, as a result of that is so new to me. However past that, I am positively anxious somewhat bit and questioning what it may be like strolling round a match or a locker room.”
The previous world No. 5 tennis participant and 2014 Wimbledon finalist shocked followers in September when it was introduced she could be becoming a member of the Skilled Pickleball Affiliation for the 2024 season. Whereas Bouchard insisted she just isn’t retiring from tennis, and plans to play each sports activities this 12 months, she stated the PPA made her a “nice supply that I actually could not refuse” so she’s going to give the brand new sport a attempt. She has been taking part in recreationally with mates for the previous a number of years and has watched as fellow tennis gamers make the transition.
So now, whereas a lot of her WTA friends are Down Underneath making ready for the Australian Open, Bouchard, and different converts reminiscent of Sam Querrey, Jack Sock and Donald Younger are within the California desert having swapped their rackets for paddles. Querrey, who made his pickleball debut final 12 months after retiring from tennis, has offered Bouchard with recommendations on what to anticipate.
Bouchard, who turns 30 subsequent month, has spent the previous a number of months coaching, and most days embody time training each tennis and pickleball in addition to time within the health club. The most important adjustment has been getting used to the scale of the paddle, which is considerably smaller than a racket, and placing much less emphasis on the technical element of the sport. Bouchard was shocked when a coach the PPA despatched to work together with her informed her to “simply exit and play” as a substitute of doing hours of particular drills.
“I am like, ‘Is my kind good? Is that this good? Is that good? What drill ought to we work on for this shot?’ I used to be going overboard, and this man was like, ‘Whoa, you are so unnecessarily detail-oriented about this,'” Bouchard stated. “He actually informed me to only go to a pickup recreation and simply play and stated that is how I used to be going to enhance probably the most.”
Whereas she by no means went and performed with full strangers on the courts close to her residence within the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami — due to “an excessive amount of social nervousness” — she practiced with mates, most of whom she performed junior tennis with. However she has been impressed with the sheer variety of gamers she has seen on any given day and the game’s inherent social high quality.
“Folks actually simply present as much as courts and simply be a part of matches and play and make mates,” she stated. “It is simply very nice.”
It is a stark distinction to the tennis world through which she grew up, which is usually very insular and unique and would not essentially breed camaraderie amongst high younger gamers or these within the skilled ranks. Nonetheless, she stated she loves the sport and, regardless of a string of accidents, lackluster outcomes and a 2021 shoulder surgical procedure that sidelined her for almost a 12 months and a half, is just not able to stroll away. She performed sparingly in 2023, typically needing wild playing cards or to come back by way of qualifying for WTA occasions, and is at the moment ranked No. 293. She final performed a tour-level match on the Guadalajara Open in September, reaching the second spherical.
Her 12 months on the tennis courtroom ended on a constructive notice, nonetheless, as a member of Crew Canada on the Billie Jean King Cup in November. Enjoying doubles, Bouchard helped Canada win its first title on the occasion — and it was a reminder of simply how far the game has are available her residence nation since she started taking part in.
“It was so particular,” stated Bouchard, who was the primary Canadian to achieve a significant singles ultimate and the primary to achieve the highest 5 in singles rankings. “Once I was a child, it was so bizarre for folks to listen to that folks performed tennis in Canada and that I used to be a tennis participant from Montreal. However now we’ve got high wonderful gamers, women and men, and are successful these occasions. It’s very regular to need to play tennis in Canada now. And so I might prefer to say I broke some obstacles and was a part of this alteration. It makes me so completely happy and it is such an honor that I do not take frivolously.”
Bouchard stated she hopes to make her 2024 tennis debut in February however is uncertain at which occasion. Her PPA contract requires her to play the 4 “Slams” — beginning with the present Palm Springs match — and numerous different lower-level occasions, a few of which she will be able to select primarily based on her personal preferences, and she’s going to construct her tennis schedule round that. In her phrases, “Nothing is about in stone.”
For now, Bouchard is simply centered on her first matches Wednesday. Solely as soon as she has the primary pickleball match out of the way in which will she enable herself to assume past it.
“I’ve zero expectations at this level,” Bouchard stated. “I need to get my bearings. I need to simply not embarrass myself, perhaps that is an excellent purpose, and simply get the cling of issues on courtroom and off. I need to have enjoyable, attempt my greatest and actually simply not be too onerous on myself.”
