By Bill Simons
For decades, the WTA brand was built on change; fresh flowers and teen darlings who blew kisses, blasted forehands, and charged (despite ample pimples) fearlessly into a dazzling world of possibilities. You know the poster girls—Chrissie, Tracy, Monica, Steffi, Martina H., Lindsay, Venus, Serena, Maria. So many blooms, a bouquet of delights!
So, as the river of generational change flowed fast and free, the tennis gods seemed to be whispering: renewal is everything, change matters. Don’t trust any baseliner over 30.
But even Madonna grows up and goes to PTA meetings. And within women’s tennis, there was a clogging of the arteries. The game got kind of gray.
Critics were whispering their complaint to the WTA: “You don’t send us flowers anymore.”
Battle-weary veteran Marion Bartoli won last summer’s Wimbledon, then promptly retired. The US Open was abuzz about, well, the fact that three semifinalists were thirtysomethings. That nice Chinese elder Li Na claimed the Aussie, and then the French Open—which featured twice as many thirtysomethings as teens—was won by Maria Sharapova, who has been blasting and shrieking for over a decade.
Enter Eugenie Bouchard. She’s young, she’s fearless, she’s named after a princess. At last, the Youth Genie was out of the bottle.
Yes, youngsters—Sloane Stephens, Simona Halep, Madison Keys—have teased us with potential. But Bouchard, they told us, doesn’t tease. All business, few (well, actually no) friends, and all in the moment. Though amidst the cheers of Genie’s adoring Army, the many marriage proposals, and all those teddy bears tossed her way, there were reports of one curious Bouchard incident after another.
In a completely standard photo op situation, Genie refused to shake the hand of a Slovakian Fed Cup player. She had a troubling rift with her onetime friend, the popular Laura Robson. There was a much-discussed ball-bashing meltdown in a French Open practice session. Here at Wimbledon, when she revealed that Big Bang Theory was her fave TV show, reporters asked her if she felt she was making a big bang at Wimbledon, and she dismissed the question as lame. So insiders weren’t shocked when she didn’t celebrate reaching the Wimbledon final. There was another match to win. March on, celebrate later.
Translation: Don’t mess around with this force of nature. Never before has there been a more blasé rookie. While others would have been bouncing off the walls after beating world No. 3 Halep to get to their first Slam final, for Bouchard, it was like she just punched in: 9 to 5.
“It’s not like a surprise to me, I expect good results like this,” said the young Canadian, who just two years ago was the Wimbledon junior champion.
So, mused the London Times, “Does she she sound cocky? She really doesn’t. She is just confident to a rather terrifying degree.”
“For me,” Bouchard continued, “I was like, ‘Okay, good. It’s a step in the right direction.’ I get to play in the final and I still have another match, so it’s not a full celebration yet.”
And it never would be.
For the woman who loves Big Bang Theory would go out with a whimper. Simply put, Bouchard’s opponent, the Czech Petra Kvitova, ticked everything off her check list and dominated. Never mind that Kvitova has played problematic ball since she won here in 2011. She hadn’t reached another Slam final, hadn’t won a tourney this year, and had inspired a whole slew of not-exactly-upbeat nicknames. Friends and fans pinned the nickname “P3tra” on her for a tendency to go on perplexing walkabouts. Bartoli’s moniker for her was “Turbulence.” But today, powerful Petra was a steady, almost frightful, storm: an unrelenting fury.
Leaning into virtually every shot, punishing with her big lefty serve, moving with surprising ease, playing hearty defense and never letting up, Kvitova was in the zone. She attacked Bouchard’s vulnerable second serve and broke early. Even her backhand was cruel, and on the two truly captivating points of this master class, she was simply and purely inspired.
For all the hype of Bouchard being the new poster girl of tennis, on this day she simply got posterized in the shortest woman’s final in 31 years. The 20-year-old, who just last year was ranked No. 66, absorbed 55 minutes of pain. Yes, she’s reached at least the semis in all three of this year’s Slams, but time and again, she couldn’t reach Kvitova’s groundies.
All the while, analysts were reaching for explanations. Ultimately Kvitova herself—after long discussions about the importance of beating Venus Williams in three sets and the bittersweet experience of beating three fellow Czechs—made it simple.
There was little talk of focus and tasks, drive and strive. Instead, she said, “Definitely, I was in the zone … I knew the emotion … I’m the girl who already won and she didn’t … Maybe it was magic. I was really prepared for everything. I know I have to go for every, every shot.”
Despite this loss, the new faces of woman’s tennis are hardly a lost generation. Their day will come. But not on this gray London Saturday.
Nonetheless, one very proper English reporter asked an almost improper question: “So much was written about Bouchard in the buildup,” she noted. “Was there anything in your performance today that said, ‘Don’t forget about Petra Kvitova’?”
Kvitova could have gone off and railed about all the hype. Instead, the big girl with the big game made a big but simple point. “This game,” she said, “brings me this beautiful emotion in the moment.” Later, she added with an enchanting simplicity, “It’s a hobby for me. I worked, and I’m here.”
