Eugenie Bouchard, who began the year ranked No. 7 but is now No. 26, believes some journalists have been too critical of her. The 21-year-old reached the semifinals of the Australian and French Opens in 2014, and finished runner-up at Wimbledon. This year, she reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, but has suffered plenty of early exits, including a first-round loss at Wimbledon. She hit a career-high ranking of No. 5 last October; currently, Bouchard is 8-14.
“It's been interesting for me to see how when I started doing well, how everyone jumped on the bandwagon or whatever, building me up so much,” Bouchard said. “And then to see how they would break you down so much as well. So it's just how the media is, to always have a story and things like that. I just separate myself from that. I know what I do and I know what I believe in. It's hard not to hear it or see it, but [I try] to just kind of give it some distance and not really worry about it.”
Bouchard doesn't have many points to defend during the summer hard-court season. Last year, she lost in the first rounds of Montreal and Cincinnati and the second round of New Haven before reaching the fourth round of the U.S. Open, where she lost to Ekaterina Makarova.
“I feel better,” the Canadian said. “I am recovering from the injury, and I'm training. So things are better now and I hope to turn my season [around]. Unfortunately, the results are slow to come and now I want to get back to doing what I do best. I'm glad to be able to put this negative period behind, it was a really stressful period for me.”