Can Eugenie Bouchard capitalize on Swiss Open performance?

Eugenie Bouchard’s performance of late has seen an upswing. After playing in ITF tournaments for the majority of her 2018 season, she made news after reaching the second round of Wimbledon, battling through qualifying and reaching the semifinals at Gstaad

However, injuries seem to be a consistent issue while Bouchard tries to climb back to the top 100. She’s retired injured out of 3 matches midway while pulling out of 2 more tournaments citing injury.

Bouchard seemed poised to make it to the Swiss Open final in Gstaad, playing aggressively in her semifinals match against number 1 seed Alize Cornet. However, an upper thigh injury stopped her from coming back from losing a tight first set and ended her Gstaad campaign.

Hard courts are a different ball game (literally)

While Bouchard has shown promising signs of improvement in grass and clay, there’s not much to show in hard courts, which has traditionally been the surface where she has (recently) seen a string of poor performances. From August last year to January, Bouchard failed to win a single match on hard courts, losing 5 matches consecutively.

Besides, hard courts cause tremendous amounts of strain on the body: something Bouchard will be looking to avoid because of her recent injury and her history of injuries throughout her career.

What needs to change?

Bouchard relies on rushing her opponents by taking the ball on the rise. While that works on some surfaces, her game plan always seems to be along these lines, with minor tweaks here and there depending on her opponent. Hiring a new coach or another coach might help as well (if she can afford that is another issue). What she needs is a fresh perspective, and a new coach can provide precisely that.

For the short term, however, Bouchard needs to improve her mentality. There have been several matches where she tends to give up once she realises that the chances of winning are low. An improvement here would make a significant change in her results and perhaps help her re-enter the top 100.