ESPN tennis analysts weigh on Eugenie Bouchard's struggles
Genie Bouchard will be the No. 6 seed in the women's singles event at the French Open, which gets under way Sunday in Paris.
And yet, few have any expectations about her being able to match last year's semi-final effort.
On a conference call Tuesday, ESPN analysts (and former players) Patrick McEnroe, Chris Evert and Mary Joe Fernandez weighed in with their two cents'.
On Bouchard's recent struggles:
EVERT: "Okay. Genie Bouchard, that is the big question. What happened to her? I think a lot of things happened to her. I think it was physical. I think after Wimbledon, she was injured. I think in the fall, she was injured. I think injuries prevented her from really preparing correctly the way she was used to with Nick Saviano.
"The fact that Nick left, he was great for her, in my opinion. He brought out the best in her. She needed that extra push. And he gave it to here. So I think with the injuries, Nick leaving, the responsibility and pressure she has, every young woman, whether it's Sloane or Madison or anyone who has really done well, the next year, which is the sophomore year, they felt the pressure and haven't done as well. I'm sure it was the pressure. I think Genie, though, in her last tournament, she had match points against Suarez Navarro. I think she's coming back. I don't doubt her talent at all. I think it's still there, but she's got to find it within herself now. She's got to find that commitment and discipline within herself because it's not being handed to her.
" She played fearless tennis last year. We're not seeing that any more. We're seeing nervous tennis."
FERNANDEZ: Sometimes you have to even work harder the following year. It's hard to have your breakthrough, but it's even harder to maintain that level. Not everybody handles the pressure the same way. She's a great competitor. She fights. But right now she has no confidence. She's in a slump. She really needs to figure out a way to control the nerves. The matches that I've seen her, she gets leads and she just can't finish the sets off. She needs those few wins, she needs those few matches in a row to keep building again. It hasn't happened in a while.
"But, you know, you have to have the faith that it's going to happen. I feel that she is going to turn the corner at some point, I think more on the faster courts. But it's been tough because she did have such a stellar year last year. Again, she competes so well, you would figure she would find a way these last few months to get through it, but she hasn't been able to get through it.
McENROE
: "I think the situation she's been dealing with is very similar to what's happening with other athletes in other sports. Make a splash and do something pretty big. She got to the Wimbledon final and the French Open semis. She has an amazing first half of the year. The biggest challenge for these young athletes is to balance celebrity with accomplishment. Sharapova, who Chrissie compared her to, she's won a bunch of majors, she's won a bunch of tournaments in her career. That's when her marketing and her branding, this is the new word now for young athletes, is their brand. You just got to be careful. You got to be careful it doesn't get out of control too early. Especially in tennis.
"It's one thing to be a great basketball player and you can say, My team doesn't win, if I'm Chris Paul or Blake Griffin, for example. But tennis players, when you talk about trying to transcend the sport as a brand, you better put up a lot of majors before you really start talking about that. I'm not blaming Genie. I would blame more the people around her. They got to keep this in check so she can focus on what she's great at, which is trying to become a really, really great tennis player."
On the non-handshake at Fed Cup:
EVERT: "I don't know how you feel. I can't relate to it. It's a team event. I can't relate to it."
FERNANDEZ: "No. It's a silly thing. It's tradition. It makes no sense for her to do that again this year."
On the weight loss everyone has noticed:
FERNANDEZ: "I have heard that, too (about the weight loss). I haven't seen her. I haven't noticed it because I haven't seen her the last month. I have heard she lost some weight. I know she works really hard off the court, does a lot of gym work. It could be, but I haven't seen her to be able to comment."
Is she focusing too much on her "brand"?
FERNANDEZ: It could be a little distracting. To me it's more about the nerves. She's not the best mover. She plays really close to the baseline. She doesn't like to defend. If you're not timing the ball perfectly, you're going to see a lot of unforced errors. To me it's more about controlling her nerves and getting her confidence back so she can dictate most of the time. The minute the ball gets too far away to the sides, she doesn't really move back. She doesn't have a lot of room for error. So I think it's tough. She has to be confident to play well.
EVERT: "I think that's an interesting question because there really is a fine line when you look at a player like Maria Sharapova, the way she's handled her branding. It hasn't affected her one iota at all. She's very professional that way. I know, again, Genie was injured a lot in the fall. She had a lot of free time. Maybe that's the time she felt like, I'll jump in, get some of my endorsements done, get on some covers of magazines. When you have a lot of requests, it's sort of hard to turn them down, being a young lady at that age.
"But now I think if that was the case for a while, it's more right between the ears, it's in her head now. As I said, last year she was fearless and she was confident, confident to the point of almost being cocky out there. I don't sense that attitude is there in her matches because she has had a few losses. It's going to take this adversity she's going through, it's going to take a lot of soul-searching, and she has to tough it out."
