Eugenie Bouchard’s painful memory, lists mistakes from her Wimbledon final demolition

Eugenie Bouchard still has some painful memories over how the 2014 Wimbledon final went as the former world No. 5 admits she absolutely felt the pressure of playing in a Grand Slam final and later realized the many mistakes that she made during the biggest match of her career.

A decade ago, a 20-year-old Bouchard impressively claimed six consecutive straight-set wins to reach the final match at The Championships in her second tournament appearance. En route to booking a Petra Kvitova matchup, the Canadian beat a couple of well-known names and former top-10 stars – Simona Halep, Angelique Kerber, Daniela Hantuchova and Andrea Petkovic. 

While Kvitova had already won Wimbledon in 2011 and was widely regarded as one of the top grass players, some even had then the young Canadian as the slight favorite considering how well she was playing and easily winning her clashes that year. But in the final, Bouchard was hit with a cold shower after the Czech claimed a dominant 6-3 6-0 win. 

That day, pretty much everything that could have possibly gone wrong for the former world No. 5, went wrong. 

“Everything just felt like it had more weight on it. So I got onto the court and I just didn’t feel as good as I did in the other matches. I don’t think there was something I could’ve done better like to win. I could’ve done things better but not something that moved the needle enough to win the match. I don’t have regrets because I feel like I probably wouldn’t have won. I wish I would’ve taken my time more between points. I was stressed and I was kind of rushing. That is something concrete I definitely could’ve done better. I guess I’d have to watch the match to know more. In 10 more years,” Bouchard confessed on the Tennis Insider Club podcast, which is hosted by Caroline Garcia.

Bouchard shares one thing that made her feel nervous

In one of her past interviews, the 30-year-old revealed that she was named after Princess Eugenie. And that day when she faced Kvitova in the final at The All England Club, guess who was in attendance. While that may look silly to some, knowing that the person she was named after sat in the crowd, made the Canadian feel nervous. 

“I was definitely very nervous for the final. I was told right before the match that Princess Eugenie, who I was named after, was going to be in attendance, was going to be watching. It probably would’ve been better if I didn’t know that. An amazing moment in my life that I just think is so cool because I was literally named after her. The moment just felt so much important,” Bouchard recounted. 

Early in the final, the Kvitova claimed breaks in the third and seventh games to open a comfortable 5-2 lead. While the Canadian managed to get one break back, the opener still soon came to an end after the former world No. 2 got her third break of the set in the ninth game. The second set was a cakewalk for the Czech, who delivered a bagel to complete her win in a very impressive way.

During the match, Bouchard won just 46 percent of her first serve points – 36 percent of her second serve points – faced 13 break points and lost her serve six times. 

Bouchard on the expectations that were placed on her 

Before reaching the Wimbledon final, the promising Canadian was also a semifinalist at the Australian Open and French Open that year. And after making three consecutive very deep Slam runs, many had the former world No. 5 as someone who would be a big-time player in the future. 

But unfortunately, her career didn’t pan out as expected as the 30-year-old started to struggle with her form around 2015 and she never again returned to being one of the best in the game. Now reflecting on it, Bouchard admits those level of expectations make sense for Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams but not for her.

“The expectations, number 1. From the outside, I mean I made the finals of a Grand Slam and everyone was like okay, that means you’re gonna win one next year obviously right? The only people who consistently do that are the ones we call the greatest of all times, literally Serena or Djokovic, or whoever and it’s really hard to do that. People kind of just take it for granted. But it’s not just me, every single player who goes through this, who’s had an amazing result then it’s suddenly, you’re constantly compared to that amazing result,” she explained.

Nowadays, Bouchard is still in tennis but she also plays pro pickleball.