Canadian magazine confuses Sharapova for Bouchard

It was bound to happen—you just might have thought it wouldn't come on the watch of one of the most trusted international magazine brands. Even so, Elle Quebec made the mistake of running photos of Maria Sharapova in a spotlight on Eugenie Bouchard.

Yes, Sharapova and Bouchard often wear similar color palettes in their Nike attire. And, indeed, both are blonde, with vivacious smiles that reveal pearly whites. The comparisons largely end there. Anyone with a more than cursory knowledge of professional tennis wouldn't confuse one for the other. And despite Elle Quebec's protestations that the wrong photos ran, such things are hammered out 60 to 90 days ahead of time, and the truth is that the magazine just got caught red-faced in a snafu revolving around its latest cover girl.

Good thing for Bouchard that she looks quite fetching in the accompanying photos that are truly of her in Elle Quebec's spreads. She's going to need every ounce of confidence both on and off court heading into the U.S. Open in New York, as she just posted her third loss in as many matches, falling to Svetlana Kuznetsova in Cincinnati, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. That, on the heels of her bewildering 6-0, 2-6, 6-0 loss to Shelby Rogers in Montreal (and a blowout defeat at the hands of Petra Kvitova at Wimbledon), isn't going to inspire many Canadians to pick up the latest glossy cover on which she appears. Call it the budding Elle curse.

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