Eugenie Bouchard may not play much tennis nowadays but she confirmed to Caroline Garcia on the Frenchwoman’s podcast that she never intended to completely leave the game although balancing between two pro sports is not an easy task.
When it was announced last September that the 2014 Wimbledon finalist was going pro in pickleball, the general belief was that it also meant the end of her tennis career. But to everyone’s surprise, the Canadian didn’t want to end that chapter yet, instead simply choosing to play both sports.
After making her pro pickleball debut in January and taking part in some other tournaments, Bouchard played her first tennis tournament of the year in May and reached the quarterfinal at an ITF event. Since then, she also competed in front of her home fans in Toronto, where she lost in the qualifying first round in August.
Addressing her future, the 30-year-old hinted that she plans to select periods of the year when she will focus on pickleball and others where she will compete on the WTA Tour.
Bouchard: I play both sports, but don’t like to go back and forth…
“It’s hard to kind of transition between the two so I did two tennis in a row, now I’ll do a couple of pickle in a row. I kind of do like groups because going back and forth is just so hard and I’d rather not have to switch too many times during the year. For now [I want to keep playing both sports professionally], we’ll see how long this lasts because I’m adding a lot on my plate,” the former WTA world No. 5 explained to Garcia on the Tennis Insider Club.
In the same podcast, Bouchard also noted that she does some off-court stuff – including tennis commentary – so sometimes she feels like she has “four jobs” and simply needs to skip something
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