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Post by Admin on Jul 28, 2014 22:56:42 GMT
In a poll conducted by Tennis Tonic, Eugenie Bouchard has already leapfrogged Sharapova and now checked in at no.2 in the rankings with 23 percent of total votes. Ana Ivanovic is still the hottest female player on tour by garnering 36 percent, while Agnieska Radwanks, who posed naked in ESPN Body two years ago, got 16 percent of the votees. Sharapova and another European hottie Daniela Hantuchova rounded out the top-5 by getting 8 percent and 7 percent, respectively. The Wimbledon Open runner-up has recently appeared on the cover of Elle Quebec, and many analysts believed the Canadian darling is poised to grow her brand in the coming years, as she continues to gain success on the floor. Coming off her first Grand Slam final, Bouchard heads into the US Open hard-court season with tremendous momentum. She recently withdrew from Citi Open in Washington, but she's expected to play in Montreal for the Rogers Cup. Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard will be the sixth seed at the upcoming Rogers Cup women’s tennis tournament while fellow Canadian Milos Raonic will be seeded seventh in the men’s event. Top-ranked Serena Williams of the United States is the top women’s seed and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia is the top men’s seed. The women will play Aug. 1-10 at Uniprix Stadium in Montreal and the men will play Aug. 2-10 at Rexall Centre in Toronto. Please get off my court @ivokarlovic Bouchard, from Westmount, Que., reached her first Wimbledon final earlier this month before losing to Kvitova. Raonic reached the men’s semifinals at the All England Club before falling to Federer, who lost to Djokovic in the final. The Rogers Cup tournament draws will be held Friday.
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Post by Admin on Aug 3, 2014 23:00:06 GMT
There is no question who is the star of this year’s women’s Rogers Cup — Eugenie Bouchard. An adoring crowd turned out to Uniprix Stadium on Sunday to salute the rising star from Westmount, Que., as she did media interviews, signed tennis balls and pictures and listened to a tribute chant from the Genie Army, a gaggle of fans who flew in from Australia to see her play in her hometown. “I’m just really excited,” the 20-year-old said. “It’s going to be my first match since Wimbledon. “I’m not going to be to hard on myself, but I’m going to give it my all and enjoy playing in front of my home crowd.” As the fifth seed, Bouchard has a bye into the second round of the 56-woman event and will likely play her first match on Tuesday evening. Bouchard’s last tournament was at the All England Club, where she became the first player on the WTA tour to reach the semifinals of the year’s first three grand slam events since Dinara Safina in 2009. Then she made a statement about the rapid progress of her game when she got to the final, only to lose in straight sets to Petra Kvitova. However, the performance put her into the top-10 in world rankings for the first time, at No. 7. “I was disappointed to lose in the final,” she said. “I expect a lot from myself and I felt I could have done better, but it was a huge learning experience in the end. “After a couple of days I was able to reflect. I felt I played a good two weeks and I was proud of that, for sure, but coming so close to achieving a dream just motivated me more. I’m really excited to finish the year strong. We’ll see what happens.” She came out of Wimbledon with a sore right knee and had to withdraw from one tournament, but said it has healed and she’s ready for the Rogers Cup. Playing at home for the first time since achieving the fame that comes from being a top-10 player means extra pressure and extra demands on her time from fans, friends and media. Happily, she has had three grand slams to at least somewhat get used to the attention and expectations. She will try her best to keep a normal schedule, which means she won’t sleep in her old bed at home. “I’m in a hotel,” she said. “I just want to stay focused and play like a normal tournament. “I’m always in hotels, so I’m just trying to keep the same routine. That’s where I feel the most comfortable.” Bouchard, whose coach Nick Saviano is in town for the event, has come a long way since winning the junior girls title at Wimbledon in 2012. She served notice with a strong rookie season as a pro by being named WTA newcomer of the year. She followed this season with an impressive run of wins that included her first WTA tournament victory in Germany just ahead of the French Open. In Australia, she lost to Li Na, who will miss the Rogers Cup with an injury. Former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova, who Bouchard idolized as a teenager and who she lost to in a French Open semifinal, has noticed the talented, attractive and personable newcomer’s rise. “She’s been so incredibly successful at the grand slams this year,” said Sharapova. “It’s been a quick transition for her from the juniors to the pros. Bouchard wants to keep the good results coming, both at the Rogers Cup and heading into the U.S. Open at the end of August, where she hopes to make at least a fourth Grand Slam semifinal in a row. The next hurdles are cracking the top five, and reaching the WTA finals in Singapore in October. “After making the top 20, in the back of my head, I’m saying ‘let’s get to top 10,’ ” said Bouchard. “Now, the next step is top 5. “It’s about slowly building. I don’t want to worry too much about specific ranking goals, but it’s motivating to see your number improve. I just want to be a better tennis player by the end of the year. I’m working hard and I think I can achieve that.”
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Post by Admin on Aug 4, 2014 22:53:19 GMT
WTA Live All Access Hour presented by Xerox from La Coupe Rogers features the tournament's top players including Maria Sharapova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Eugenie Bouchard, Jelena Jankovic, Petra Kvitova & Victoria Azarenka. In this episode, watch Genie Army surprise Genie Bouchard with a new song, and see our players play air hockey and answer your fan questions! A group of Australian supporters of rising tennis star Eugenie Bouchard are enjoying a moment in the spotlight themselves. Ryan Gibb, part of the fan club known as the Genie Army in Montreal for the Rogers Cup, said Saturday he’s been greeted warmly by fellow tennis fans and sometimes even asked to pose for photos. The Genie Army has become a minor phenomenon since it began at the Australian Open in January, when Bouchard made a run all the way to the semi-finals. “We were just going the Australian Open to have a bit of fun at the tennis, and to support a player we like and admire in the way she plays,” Gibb recalled. “But to be here is just out of this world and surreal.” Dressed in their red and white “Genie Army” T-shirts, the six Australians who made the trip met with youngsters Saturday at the tournament site. The Genie Army was invited to Montreal by Tennis Canada after the group gained attention during the Australian Open for their catchy chants and T-shirts that collectively spelled out “G-E-N-I-E.” They were offered a free pass to the Aug. 2-10 tournament, as well as a place to stay near the stadium. But the Australians, many of whom are university students, had to pay for their own flights. “It’s a first time for all of us in Canada,” said Sarah Biviano, another Bouchard devotee. “And I think for some of us, it’s the first time overseas. So it’s an exciting time.”
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Post by Admin on Aug 14, 2014 21:50:46 GMT
It's not that budding Montreal tennis star Genie Bouchard and multiple Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova haven't been compared before. They're both blonde, we'll give you that one. They both wear Nike, although usually not the same outfit. They're both ambitious and ruthless competitors. We'll grant you that, as well. But when 25-year-old fashion magazine Elle-Québec decided to make Bouchard its cover subject, and add a fluffy little piece inside to introduce fashion fans to the new sports star of the moment, they made a fairly ghastly mistake: Here's a side-by-side from the French Open (where the photos of Sharapova used in the spread were taken), so you can compare and contrast. There's also a nearly six-inch height differential, although the matching visors might have caused the confusion. According to this, the photo shoot for the cover was done in April, which would have been early April – between Miami and Bouchard's departure for the clay-court event in Estoril, Portugal. The interview also was done then. Well after the issue hit newsstands, the website issued this "rectification" on July 24. The "real" Genie Bouchard. (from ellequebec.com) A translation: "An error occurred in the publication of the photos accompanying the article about prodigious tennis player (!!!) Eugenie Bouchard in our August issue. Here are the photos of the athlete that should have appeared in our pages. Our sincerest apologies." Backstage With Eugenie Bouchard: Backstage With Eugenie Bouchard Go behind the scenes of the photo shoot with Eugenie Bouchard posing on the cover of our August 2014 edition: video.ellequebec.com/3642116645001/En_coulisses_avec_Eugenie_Bouchard
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Post by Admin on Aug 19, 2014 22:37:08 GMT
Before the Connecticut Open got underway this week in New Haven, many of the participating stars channeled their inner-Yale student and helped the rest of us dummies understand the definitions to the newest words in the Oxford Dictionary. A Canadian tennis star is taking on New Haven at the Connecticut Open. Eugenie Bouchard is currently ranked the No. 8 player in the world. She is tennis’ breakout star of the year. But name and face recognition is still taking some time. One publication recently misidentified her as Maria Sharapova. “That was an unfortunate incident,” Bouchard said. Eugenie Bouchard is slowly making her own name. It’s hard not to, with the way she’s played in Grand Slam events this season. Bouchard made the semifinals of both the Australian and French Opens, then played for the Wimbledon championship, where she finished runner-up to Petra Kvitova. “To be on that stage was such a proud moment for me, because I earned my way to get there,” Bouchard said. “So that’s a feeling of satisfaction and being proud, knowing you’ve put in so many years of hard work. It really makes me happy, and it’s something I want to experience many more times in my career, hopefully.” With her success in the Grand Slams, Bouchard’s international ranking has soared. She’s gone from the No. 38-ranked player in the world all the way up to No. 8. “I’ve always been competitive, whether it was math tests I took as a 10-year old and I wanted to get 100 percent, or whether it was board games with my family where I had to win, and if I didn’t it was the end of the world,” she said. “No matter what I do, I always want to win, and I think that’s an important thing to have in this tennis world.”
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