GENIE GONE?
Bouchard drops out of U.S. Open doubles after a locker-room fall and head injury, but status for singles remains unclear. Rosie DiManno in New York,
NEW YORK— One moment she was walking on air. The next she was flying through it, landing on her noggin.
What further calamities can befall Eugenie Bouchard in this season of distress? Be-fall. Be serious. At some point Friday night, the 21-yearold slipped in the locker room here and conked her head, flushing her out of Flushing Meadows competition Saturday. Out of the scheduled doubles match, out of the scheduled mixed doubles match.
But not — fingers crossed — invalided out of Sunday’s Round of 16 singles match, which is what matters. Apart from health, of course. As of Saturday night, when the order-of-play was released, Bouchard’s name was on it.
A statement released earlier by tournament director David Brewer revealed that the native of Westmount, Que., had taken a tumble and “sustained a head injury.”
The severity was still being assessed and Bouchard monitored by medical staff.
The first anybody realized something had gone wrong was when Bouchard failed to appear for her 2 p.m. doubles summons on Court 11 with Russian partner Elena Vesnina. The U.S. Open results menu had W/O next to Americans Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears — walk-over.
There would be no Bouchard sighting as the hours passed. But she did tweet a sad-face emoticon.
The previous evening, when Bouchard faced the media at a late press conference, there’d been no hint of anything amiss. Her long hair was wet from showering, suggesting Bouchard had already finished her post-match toilette. She was buoyant and effervescent, fresh off a victorious mixed doubles engagement with bad-boy Australian partner Nick Kyrgios and still aglow from her earlier three-set singles dispatch of Dominika Cibulkova.
It’s felt like ages since Bouchard had anything to smile about. Yet here she was, on an upward trajectory again, having strung back-to-back-to-back wins, her best performance in a year; indeed, her best since she last passed through Queens.
The crowds were adoring, the mandatory media sessions gentle, and the tennis redemptive. No questions about more disappointment absorbed. No interrogation about whither the breakthrough Genie of 2014 who’d reached the semifinals of the Australian and French Open and was a finalist at Wimbledon.
As of Saturday night, Bouchard was scheduled to play her Sunday singles match despite fall
Not even a cautious query — and it must at some point be asked — about what happened to that muscle-cut young woman the world saw in those majors, replaced now with a shockingly svelte version.
The charisma certainly hasn’t gone missing. Bouchard engaged playfully with reporters, turning on the effortless charm. While sometimes appearing a forlorn creature, sitting on her chair courtside during crossovers, with no coach or trainer, apparently no retinue at all since a flurry of firings and alleged abandonments. She’s managed the solitary thing just fine, making do with the latter mentoring, or “advising” of legendary Jimmy Connors. But Connors hasn’t been here since last weekend, though he was expected to be in situ Sunday, and they’ve been speaking by phone every day.
“He’s watching all the time. Of course his presence will be greatly appreciated. I think we’ve had a good couple of weeks, so I just want to keep that going.”
Connors, said Bouchard, had invested her with a sense of renewed self-assurance. “In the kind of mental confidence department, I’d say. He has so much experience, obviously. Just hearing his stories and listening to him speak. Obviously I respect him so much.
“Just the little tips and advice he would give me. The fact that he told me truly believes in me reminded me, hey, I need to believe in myself as well. We just need to build up my confidence a little bit.” Frankly, it had been shot. It remains to be seen whether the fall — a complication out of nowhere — will have any lingering effects, psychologically or physically, upsetting Bouchard’s hard-won equilibrium, rebounding from what had been, at one juncture, a 1-10 match slide, with repeated first-round ousters. The so-recent darling of the tennis universe had come a shocking cropper.
Bouchard’s innate charm had even succeeded in shaving off the rough edges of current tour pariah Kyrgios. They were an adorable onetwo act in their doubles performance, with Kyrgios gallantly helping his partner during a fashion malfunction ( jewelry, actually), and Bouchard wagging her finger warningly at the brat from Oz when he threatened racquet assault over a line call. “No you’re not! Don’t do it — it’s not worth it.”
Adding later, to inquisitors: “I think he was about to throw his racquet or say a bad word and get his suspension thing. He’s like, ‘I’m about to do it, I’m about to do it.’ ”
Furtive conversations, giggling asides, a whole bunch of flirtatious exchanges — the spectacle, dripping with (a possibly put-on) sexual tension, ignited the twittersphere. Some observed it was more like peeking in at a first date or watching an episode of The Bachelor.
Their temperaments would seem to crash. Bouchard simply never goes hot-headed or petulant on court, even when the victim of pedantic chair calls on crucial points — as she was in her singles match against the Slovakian, Cibulkova. Yet together they’ve quickly established a fetching simpatico yin-and-yang.
“It was super fun,” Bouchard enthused. “He’s just really like a funny guy. I was laughing the whole time. That’s probably why I’m extra tired now because I was laughing all the time. He has constant conversations with people in the crowd so I was just listening.’’
They’ve known each other since junior days but had never hung out together before. Now, though it may all be a coy façade, they’ve been transformed into a tabloid “item.”
“I just think he’s so funny and interesting and he’s good for the game . . . very nice and humble. So I support him.”
Love, even the make-believe kind, can be deaf, dumb and blind.