Tennis has been more than just an athletic career for Eugenie Bouchard.
The Canadian-born tennis player opened up about how the sport was the right one for the “sex appeal side.”
“Tennis, first of all, is a great sport for that sex appeal side,” Bouchard said in an interview with YouTuber Valeria Lipovetsky. “We’re wearing short skirts, we’re wearing tank tops. It’s fun to turn on the TV and watch that. Right away I was able to get great marketing deals off the court. Being asked to be in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition a few times.
“Exploring that path was definitely on my to-do list. It’s definitely part of who I am because I think it’s great.”
Bouchard, 30, said modeling has helped her transcend just being a sports star.
“Why keep myself in a box? Why not try to become bigger, or better, or transcend tennis, or explore other fields?,” she said. “Tennis is the only thing I know, but it can’t be the only thing I’ll ever do in my life. So I found it very interesting to be in the magazines or do fashion stuff and see that I really enjoyed these things as well.”
“[It’s] just increasing my fan base, my audience, which in turn helps me get better brand deals, better endorsements.Not just in a personal way for me, ‘OK I can actually make more money out of this’, but in a general sense, ‘OK we have someone who is maybe a casual fan who is going to come to the Miami Open to watch me play’.
“That’s good for tennis in general, for female tennis, for women’s sports, that’s good for everything.”
Bouchard’s tennis career has been marred by injuries since bursting onto the scene in 2014 when she made the Wimbledon final at just 20 years old, losing the Grand Slam match to Serena Williams.
A former world No. 5 player, Bouchard has taken up pickleball in recent years, although she insisted to ESPN in January that her tennis career isn’t over.
Bouchard’s last tour-level tennis tournament was the Guadalajara Open in September when she was eliminated in the Round of 32 by Veronika Kudermetova.
