The Canadian has made her inaugural trip to Romania to participate in the Transylvania Open.
The tournament is hosting its second edition of the event after having it last year for the first time during the Covid-19 pandemic which proved to be more difficult than ever.
Last year was marred by the tournament finding out the day before the main draw began that it would not be allowed to have fans the entire week and it was a somber experience.
This year is completely different and this time the tournament will be able to pack the BT Arena just minutes away from the city center in Cluj-Napoca in the heart of Transylvania.
Ubitennis had the opportunity to ask Eugenie Bouchard a few questions about her return from injury, her new coach, and her comeback on the WTA Tour which has not been easy for the Canadian.
She spent the last year and a half rehabbing and training in the beautiful cities of Los Angeles and Las Vegas hoping for the day she could come back to play.
“It was extremely tough I would say and the last year and a half have been the toughest of my career obviously I never had surgery before and to go through that is really hard mentally and it tested my patience a lot but it made me remember my love for tennis and confirm that I really love it.”
Bouchard spoke about the feeling of calling it quits but says the actual thought of going through with it never actually materialized.
“I really didn’t want to stop despite going through rehab and PT and you have those thoughts of why am I doing this but it was never a real thought and I always knew I wanted to come back.”
The Westmount native priority for her return to action hinged on her being pain-free and she is proud to say she has reached that point.
“Well my first goal was to not have pain on the court and that makes playing tennis so much more enjoyable and try to come back as soon as possible and it went longer than I would have hoped but I came back right on time for the US Open so now my goal is to play as much as possible and I feel my tennis is improving with each tournament that I am playing and set myself up to have a full normal year next year.”
The Canadian made her return to tournament action in Chennai India where she made the quarterfinals boosting her ranking from 900 all the way to 463 before qualifying in Ostrava last week.
She ended up facing a top seed in Belinda Bencic and despite facing a big task she played some of her best tennis and pushed the Swiss to three sets before eventually losing the match.
“I did not know what to expect in terms of my tennis. I came back quicker than expected and I feel good with my shots and my game but the first couple [of matches] I felt off because playing a match is so different from playing in practice and even though I was playing well in practice It was not translating in the matches, but now that I have played more matches I feel my game coming back and playing Belinda feeling I should have won was a disappointing result but it showed I can play with the best players in the world.”
The world number 463 spoke about the tough task of not being able to play for months on end and how she was able to deal with it.
“I am a very competitive person and to miss out on that adrenaline when you play tennis was weird even just having an even-keel life was weird because I am so used to the highs and lows of playing a crazy sport so doing things like broadcasting for Tennis Channel and Sportsnet in Canada as well doing broadcasting gave me that adrenaline as well and it replaced the one I have during a match so It gave me something to work towards and preparing for it as if I was playing a match gave me structure and goals to have obviously besides my rehab because I needed to give my brain some stuff because I was getting restless.”
Finally, she got asked how her relationship with her new coach Tim Blenkiron has been going and she is satisfied with the move.
“Tim has been great even during the period I did not play, we were on the phone every week and trying to plan the comeback, and even if it was hard for that amount of time because you did not know when to come back, we stayed in touch a lot and he was waiting for me to come back.
“He is a great coach but he also has a great personality and he is easy to be around when you travel one on one with someone for many weeks It is important to actually get along with them as well and we do and he is just really fun to be around with.”
The main draw was made today with the help of Bouchard and she picked herself last to face the number two seed Anhelina Kalinina from Ukraine in her first match.
