Eugenie Bouchard believes her tennis outfits aided her sex appeal (Image: Getty)
Eugenie Bouchard has opened up about the sex appeal in tennis and how it kickstarted her journey into modelling. The Canadian star shot to fame after the 2014 Wimbledon final, where she was defeated by Petra Kvitova.
She leveraged her Grand Slam exposure to secure lucrative deals beyond the court, including bagging a three-year endorsement with Coca-Cola and inking a contract with IMG models “to expand her presence in the fashion industry”, reports the Daily Star.
Her marketability soared as she became more comfortable in the limelight. Speaking to Valeria Lipovetsky, Bouchard reflected: “Tennis first of all is a great sport for that sex appeal side.
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“I mean we’re wearing short skirts, we’re wearing tank tops. It’s fun to turn on the TV and watch that. Right away I was able to get great marketing deals off the court.
“Being asked to be in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition a few times. Exploring that path was definitely on my to-do list, it’s definitely part of who I am because I think it’s great.
“Why keep myself in a box? Why not try to become bigger, or better, or transcend tennis, or explore other fields? Tennis is the only thing I know, but it can’t be the only thing I’ll ever do in my life. So I found it very interesting to be in magazines or do fashion stuff and see that I really enjoyed these things as well.”
Bouchard launched a modelling career off the back of her on-court success (Image: Getty)
Bouchard faced flak for her off-court pursuits, with critics claiming she lost focus on tennis. Despite a promising breakthrough at Wimbledon a decade ago, she never improved on that performance at a major and has since hung up her racket for pickleball.
British newcomer Jack Draper recently graced the pages of British Vogue and confessed his love for the limelight, prompting Bouchard to claim such an admission would have been received negatively during her rise. She went so far as to suggest she would have been “crucified” had she said something similar.
Yet, despite the criticism over her growing social media presence and candid posts, Bouchard has no regrets about her career choices. In fact, she wishes she had leaned into her off-court activities even more – arguing it was beneficial for not just her.
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The 30-year-old has over two million Instagram followers (Image: geniebouchard/Instagram)
She emphatically stated: “I would’ve done more of it. Completely. Why stop myself? There’s things I said no to that I regret. Why stop myself from trying to be everything I can be? Maybe you wouldn’t have heard of me if I didn’t do some of my off-court stuff.
“And that is just increasing my fanbase, my audience, which in turn helps me get better brand deals, better endorsements. Not just in a personal way for me, ‘ok I can actually make more money out of this’, but in a general sense, ‘ok we have someone who is maybe a casual fan who is going to come to the Miami Open to watch me play’.
“That’s good for tennis in general, for female tennis, for women’s sports, that’s good for everything. The more we can expand and broaden our reach the better it is, no matter in what way. So for anyone to possibly say anything about that to me is shocking.”
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