Ahmed Rizvi
Last month, the London-based SportsPro magazine released its annual list of the Top 50 Most Marketable Athletes in the World and a tennis player was at the top.
It was not Maria Sharapova, though, or Roger Federer.
Those two were not even on the list.
Neither were the other top tennis stars, such as Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray or the 20-time grand slam champion Serena Williams.
Tiger Woods and LeBron James do not feature on the list either.
Instead, a young blonde tennis player from Canada is at the top of the list, ahead of Brazilian football star Neymar and the 21-year-old golfer Jordan Spieth, the Masters and US Open champion.
The rankings surprised most commentators, especially since Eugenie Bouchard, the No 1 on the list, had a 7-9 win-loss record for 2015.
She has since added three straight defeats to that record, which means the Canadian, who rose from No 32 in the rankings to No 7 in 2014, has lost 10 of her past 11 matches.
The Montreal native is No 42 on the Road to Singapore leaderboard, the rankings for the season-ending championship.
Her wretched slump in 2015, following a remarkable 2014, has begged questions such as the one asked by the Montreal Gazette’s Stu Cowan last week: “What the heck happened to Eugenie Bouchard?”
According to American Chris Evert, who won 18 majors between 1974 and 1986, Bouchard probably erred in parting ways with her long-time coach Nick Saviano, who had worked with her since she was 12.
Bouchard hired Victoria Azarenka’s former coach Sam Sumyk instead, as she wanted “someone who’s played or who’s been coaching someone who had been there, getting to No 1 or winning grand slams”.
“I think that Nick Saviano was really good for her, and I think he was a very positive influence,” Evert said last week.
“I don’t know what happened – I’m not privy to what happened there.
“But I think that probably has had an effect on her.”
The bigger problem could be that all this “marketing” has gone to her head.
Fans have already started describing Bouchard as another Anna Kournikova in the making.
While that might sound harsh, fact is she has been gracing more magazine covers than back pages in recent months, spending more time being a celebrity than a tennis player.
Last December, as she signed for WME/IMG, Bouchard spoke about how the new deal could help “maximise the value of my brand” – a line that did not go down well with fans.
There have been a few other incidents that have left Bouchard with few sympathisers in her corner.
The Federation Cup “handshakegate”, where she refused to shake hands with Romanian opponent Alexandra Dulgheru before the match, was arguably the low point in terms of a public relations mistake.
In January, Bouchard once again talked about how she did not want to become “really good friends with any of the girls on tour” because it was a “distraction”.
At present, though, she must be wishing otherwise – wishing she had made a few friends on her way up in 2014.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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