"Gonna put the Genie back in the bottle": Eugenie Bouchard surprised by Steffi Graf trash talking her ahead of Pickleball Slam

Eugenie Bouchard was given a trash talk by a certain Steffi Graf ahead of their showdown at the third Pickleball Slam which will take place on February 16, 2025 also featuring Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick.

Bouchard, a former Wimbledon finalist who has seen her career dip and she has moved on to pickleball recently lost at the Tucson Open between February 6-9 in Arizona. She got some prep in with Jack Sock but they lost 8-11, 5-11 to Lindsey Newman and Ivan Jakovljevic.

Shortly after this to rub salt into the wounds, Graf and Agassi released their call out. "We're gonna put the 'genie' back in the bottle," said Graf in a video message with Agassi.

But Bouchard was more shocked than anything else that Graf was trash talking her ahead of the high stakes money showdown. "If you told me young that Steffi Graff would be trash talking me like this one day..." the Canadian captioned her story.

Albeit Bouchard started it first by using the Genie in the bottle quip as a call out herself. "The Genie is out of the bottle and I’m ready to kick some a**," she captioned.

Each year the winning team takes home $1m with John McEnroe, Michael Chang, Maria Sharapova among others playing in it before but Graf and Agassi were imperious last time out.

Can the addition of Bouchard who brings eyes on the sport when she plays and now is a pickleball pro add to Roddick's charge. She previously explained why she switched. “I was like, you know, ‘I’d love to challenge myself to try something new.’ And also to be a part of something that is so trending and growing so much, that was really appealing to me. It was also something I could do while still playing some tennis tournaments. So that’s why I was like, ‘Yeah, sign me up."