- Eugine Bouchard stunned fans in last year stating she would join the PPA Tour
- The former world No 5 made her first appearance on the circuit this week
- The Canadian joins a growing list of tennis professionals to take up pickleball
Eugine Bouchard has swapped her tennis racquent and has made her first appearance on the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Tour.
The Canadian stunned fans back in September after it was announced that she would be joining the professional circuit in 2024.
The explosion of people taking up pickleball has seen it become one of the fastest growing sports in the world, with over 50,000 courts popping up in the United States alone, while it is becoming increasingly more popular in the United Kingdom.
Pickleball is played on a court of a similar size to those used in badminton. Players use paddles instead of racquets and play with a hollow ball.
It was reported back in January 2023 that over 36.5million people had played the sport over the previous 12 months, with the demand being so great that
Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard made her first appearance on the Professional Pickleball Association Tour this week
Bouchard announced that she’d be joining the tour back in September and was competing in the women’s singles event and the women’s doubles event at The Masters, in California
Bouchard is one of several tennis pros, including the likes of Sam Querrey, Jack Sock and Donald Young out in the California desert for this week’s The Masters tournament.
Tom Brady and Lebron James are among some of the big names in sport to have invested in pickleball.
But the former world No 5 has insisted that she will not be fully retiring from professional tennis, telling ESPN that the PPA proposed ‘a great offer that I really couldn’t refuse’.
Despite that, the 2014 Wimbledon finalist, who also helped Canada win the Billie Jean King Cup in November, suffered defeat in her first women’s singles match at the tournament on Wednesday.
She was beaten by Ekaterina Biakina 1-11 7-11 in the round of 32.
Bouchard also paired up with Chao Yi Wang in the women’s doubles, but the duo were also knocked out in the second round, losing 11-5 4-11 5-11 to Malia Lum and Trang Huynh-McClain.
Her contract with the PPA reportedly requires her to participate in all four of the circuits major events, according to ESPN, with this week’s tournament in Palm Springs being the first. She is also required to feature in a number of other events throughout the season.
Speaking on the sport and the welcoming atmosphere around pickleball, she told ESPN: ‘People literally just show up to courts and just join matches and play and make friends. It’s just really nice.’
On whether she has set any goals to accomplish with pickleball, she added: ‘I have zero expectations at this point.
Bouchard was beaten in the round of 32 of the Women’s singles event by Ekaterina Biakina
Bouchard also paired up with Chao Yi Wang but they suffered defeat in their opening doubles match
The former world No 5 helped Canada win the Billie Jean King Cup back in November
‘I want to get my bearings. I want to just not embarrass myself, maybe that’s a good goal, and just get the hang of things on court and off. I want to have fun, try my best and really just not be too hard on myself.’
Her last appearance on the WTA Tour came at Guadalajara Open in September where she was beaten by Veronika Kudermetova.
But speaking more on Canada’s victory at the Billie Jean King cup, Bouchard said: ‘It was so special/ When I was a kid, it was so weird for people to hear that people played tennis in Canada and that I was a tennis player from Montreal.
‘But now we have top amazing players, men and women, and are winning these events. It’s totally normal to want to play tennis in Canada now.
‘And so I’d like to say I broke some barriers and was part of this change. It makes me so happy and it’s such an honor that I don’t take lightly.’