The tennis player Eugenie Bouchard, finalist of the Wimbledon tournament in 2014, has reacted to the ‘haters’ who criticize her activities as an influencer and model away from the court.
The Canadian has confessed in an interview with The Times that the transformation from a normal sportswoman to a global superstar brings additional pressures and revealed that it is difficult to adapt to these demands.
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Bouchard regretted allowing “hate” and “brainwashing” to control her actions at times in her career, wishing she had been able to curb the criticism she faced.
“I wouldn’t have taken things so personally and let the hate absorb into my brain. Brainwashing works and if you start hearing negative things about yourself over and over again, it’s hard not to believe it. I just wish I could have clocked that out more and not let it affect my confidence because it totally did affect how I thought about myself. It even affected how I played,” she explained.
Eugenie Bouchard: If I had said this 10 years ago, I would have been crucified
Bouchard, who fell from No. 5 to No. 524 in the WTA rankings and now combines tennis with Pickleball, has complained in The Times about the “hate” she has received during her career for her social media activity and sponsorship campaigns.
“Back in the day, I could train six hours during the day before later posting on social media about being at the movies and I would get hate,” she said. “It was like, well, social media isn’t an exact representation of my day.”
Bouchard compares the pressure she suffered for her extra-sporting activities to that of current figures such as Emma Raducanu or Jack Draper (who admitted in ‘Vogue’ that he loved spending time in front of the camera).
“If I had said this 10 years ago, I would have been crucified on social media…. It’s fantastic that the world has changed in the last 10 years and that it’s now not only acceptable to do things off the court, but actually encouraged,” the Canadian reflected.
Bouchard acknowledges that “back in the day, I felt like I was being shoved into a box, like you can’t do anything besides tennis. I was like, tennis has given me opportunities to explore the fashion world, TV and all these other things. Why would I say no? We’re talking about my life in its entirety here.
“I would get so much hate for doing anything other than tennis. It was a burden I would bear on my shoulders and it was really hard. At least it’s more accepted now. Not that I was the only pioneer to do these things but I feel like I made it a little bit more normal.”