Eugenie Bouchard ended her career at the National Bank Open on Wednesday with a gutsy performance against Swiss 17th seed Belinda Bencic.
The former Wimbledon finalist fell 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, to Bencic in what was the last match of her professional career. Bouchard previously announced that the National Bank Open would be her final tournament. Despite playing only three singles events over the past 12 months, the Canadian battled hard against the world No. 20 and at one stage was 3-1 up in the deciding set before losing five out of the next six games.
“I’m glad I was able to play some decent tennis on the court and just absorb all the special emotional moments with the fans, with my family and friends who are here. It’s just kind of a perfect ending for me,” the 31-year-old said afterwards.
Despite her latest performance, Bouchard reiterated that she isn’t changing her mind about stepping away from the sport. In recent years, she has missed chunks of the Tour due to injury and playing on the pickleball circuit.
“There’s a lot of hard work that goes into tennis,” she explains.
“It was great to be able to perform well. It’s such a tough life of sacrifice and hard work. I’ve given so much to tennis, and it’s given me so much, but I do feel ready to move on from that and do other things in life, but I will forever be grateful for what tennis has given me.”
Bouchard’s standout season was in 2014 when she reached the final at Wimbledon, as well as the semi-finals at both the Australian Open and French Open. In October of that year, she reached a career-high of fifth in the world rankings. Despite her talent, she only won one WTA title during her career, which was at the Nuremberg Cup. She also reached the final of seven other tournaments between 2013 and 2021.
As for what is next, Bouchard is keeping her options open with two possibilities being studying or doing more television work.
“I want to give myself the opportunity to have space and time to really reflect on what I want to do and have that time to be open to opportunities,” she concluded.
