Bouchard Hangs Up Her Racket As She Loses On Home Soil

The world of tennis is again going through another change as old eras end, and new ones begin, and Father Time has now caught up with Eugenie Bouchard as she has now officially hung up her racket following her exit from the Canadian Open and she looks towards a new career path for the future.

The 31 year old Montreal native had announced her decision to retire from the sport earlier in the month, but she wanted to come full circle and play in front of a home crowd one last time before she walked away. For those who had thought to buy a VPN and were watching on, you could see that it was a pretty emotional moment when she had to acknowledge that retirement was now upon her following a 6-2 3-6 6-4 second round defeat to 17th ranked Belinda Bencic.

Taking the microphone, she delivered an emotional speech to the attending fans in her hometown of Montreal and as she thanked the sport, and expressed her gratitude to all of those individuals who had helped her along the way, not least her family for their sacrifice and support, you could tell what the moment meant to her.

 "It's only because of that that I'm standing here today, and I want you guys to know that when this crowd cheers for me, they're cheering for you guys too. I wouldn't be here without you."

It is a career on the court that she can look back fondly on though. At the 2014 Wimbledon Championships she registered as the first Canadian born player to represent Canada at a major singles final, and that very same year she reached the semi final stages of both the Australian and French Opens and in amongst a number of awards, her success and progress on the varying surfaces in the WTA tour saw her rank at a career high of No 5 - again becoming the first Canadian tennis player to reach the top five rankings, so she deserves to be regarded as one of the best Canadian tennis players of all time.

Despite announcing her retirement, she has also stated that she plans on remaining active on both the tennis and pickleball professional tours, so her fans will have to see how that plays out but having been ranked as the No 9 World's Highest Paid Female Athlete in 2018, she would obviously be a welcome addition to the senior tennis tour. Given how she has been severely hampered in recent years with a succession of injury issues to overcome, her retirement does not really come as much of a surprise, and if the senior tour is her future, it could be the perfect fit on a fitness front.

She was clearly liked on the tour though, and messages from her fellow professionals have been flooding in, and even though United Kingdom talent Emma Raducanu has never faced Bouchard on the court, she had her own heartfelt message.

Taking to social media and her Instagram account, she posted "Thank you Genie, loved watching you compete and play. Wish you all the best for your next chapter."

It will be interesting to see what she does next, as if she can put her injury problems aside, at 31 there are plenty of years left in the tank for another adventure.