"She would kill the singles game pretty quickly": Eugenie Bouchard predicts how long it would take Coco Gauff to become a top-5 pickleball player

Eugenie Bouchard, having fully retired from the WTA Tour earlier this year to focus on the PPA Tour, offered a candid assessment of her new career during a recent appearance on The Kitchen Pickleball podcast. The former Wimbledon finalist is an authoritative voice when it comes to comparing the difficulty of tennis and pickleball, and the capacity of a professional tennis player to adapt to pickleball.

During the interview, Bouchard was asked about the possibilities of a top-tier WTA player becoming a top pickleball player. The Canadian answered how long she believes it would take Coco Gauff to establish herself in the top 5 of pickleball – both in singles and doubles – if she hypothetically decided to switch sports.

"She's so athletic. I mean, she would kill the singles game pretty quickly. I think all tennis players naturally feel pretty good on the singles court. But she does really well in doubles as well, it’s something Jack Sock had. He was really good in doubles. And so I think that helps the doubles in pickleball. And I was less of a doubles player, which shows in my struggles in doubles and pickleball," commented Bouchard before venturing a specific time frame. "So I don't know. Top five? Like eight months."

However, Bouchard distinguished that in the case of doubles, specific skills are required that a tennis player could not necessarily develop so quickly, asserting that it would be much more complicated to see a tennis player positioning themselves in the top 5 of pickleball doubles, even for someone like Gauff. "I mean, I think that's harder. I don't know if she would get to top five."

"You said top five? These girls are so good. It's like so hard," added the Canadian. "There's also no magic pill. You can't like jump forward a year of training, right? You have to go through that year of training. And so they have the advantage of time, first of all. And it's just hard to compete against that."

When pressed on which sport she currently prefers, Bouchard remained loyal to her roots on the WTA Tour. Despite the growing popularity of the PPA Tour and her full-time commitment to it, the comfort of the tennis court remains unmatched for her. She emphasized that the enjoyment of sport is often inextricably linked to proficiency, noting that her twenty-five-year tenure in tennis provides a level of security and muscle memory that she has yet to find with the paddle.

"Well, I would just say tennis because I am better at it. It's more fun to do something you're good at. And I've done it for 25 years and feel so comfortable on a court."

She elaborated on the psychological and physical differences in shot-making, particularly during high-stress moments in a match. In tennis, nerves can be managed by accelerating the racquet head and relying on physical exertion to reset the point. Pickleball, conversely, demands a technical "third shot drop" and touch, forcing athletes to decelerate precisely when their adrenaline urges them to swing freely.

Bouchard noted that even on her forehand, she is rarely "full swinging" the way she would in tennis. "Pickleball, you're always kind of holding yourself back. And I think it's actually tougher in stressful situations. Because in tennis, if I'm nervous, I'll hit through the ball and get my nerves out."

"In pickleball, you still have to do a third shot drop. You still have to hit 80%. Even on a forehand, I'm not full swinging the way I would swing in tennis," the 2014 Wimbledon runner-up added. "In tennis, you could step back. You could grind for a couple points. Get some shots. Get some consistency into your system. Pickleball, you're still trying to hit it and get to the net," she concluded.