TORONTO — Eugenie Bouchard wants to get back to playing tennis like she did when she was winning more than a year ago and hopes a new coach will help her achieve that goal.
Bouchard will be working with temporary coach Marko Dragic at the Rogers Cup next week after parting ways with Sam Sumyk, who she had only worked with for the past six months.
“I am no longer working with Sam,” Bouchard said at a news conference Friday. “I’ve just come to that decision.”
Bouchard made the Wimbledon final in 2014 but has struggled since the Rogers Cup a year ago, when she lost in the first round in Montreal to Shelby Rogers. The Westmount, Que., native has lost 12 of her past 14 WTA matches.
“I just feel like I haven’t been quite myself, my confident, aggressive game lately and that’s something that I’ve been working on very hard in practice,” Bouchard said. “I have the belief, and I know my skills are still there and nothing can just vanish. It’s just about working hard to getting back on track.”
The next change to do that comes Tuesday, when Bouchard faces Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in the first round of the Rogers Cup on the campus of York University. The winner of that match goes up against fourth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in the second round.
Bouchard will be working with Dragic at the Rogers Cup but said she has “not made plans for something more permanent right now.” But the 21-year-old knows what she wants in her next full-time coach.
“I’m looking for someone who can help me improve all areas of my game,” she said. “I think it’s very important to be able to address the technical side, the tactical side, the mental side and the physical side.
“You need all of that in tennis. Someone who just has the experience of the top level and who can help me improve daily.”
Bouchard has fallen to 25th in the world amid her struggles over the past year. Told that, she once said she learns more from losing than winning, she quipped: “I must’ve learned a lot since I lost a lot this year.”
Some of that might have to do with an abdominal injury that forced Bouchard to withdraw from the Citi Open in Washington. She said she’s feeling good now.
“I’ve been healing well and looking forward to playing this week and getting back to competition,” Bouchard said.
Things started to go sideways for Bouchard last August when she lost to Rogers in Montreal. She explained that time as being “very hectic” because of the fanfare surrounding her after going so far at Wimbledon.
“Obviously being in the city I grew up in was very crazy,” she said. “It’s just something I had to manage and deal with. I was kind of just having to deal with a lot of things off the court as well as on the court. It was just a learning process.”
Bouchard is in the same bracket as 14th-seeded Venus Williams, whom she’d play in the third round if she gets that far. Top-seeded Serena Williams, who will be going for the Grand Slam at the U.S. Open, faces the winner of a first-round match between Italy’s Flavia Pennetta and Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski.
On a recent conference call, Serena Williams spoke highly of Bouchard, despite her recent run.
“I think she’s doing a great job,” Williams said. “She has a lot of things going for her and she has a very bright future. I don’t think she really needs any advice. She’s doing well and she’ll be totally fine.”
Bouchard said those comments were motivating and that she takes them as a “great compliment.”
Along with Bouchard and Dabrowski, there are two other Canadians in the field at the Rogers Cup. Montreal’s Francoise Abanda will face 16th-seeded Andrea Petkovic of Germany in the first round, and Carol Zhao of Richmond Hill, Ont., will face American Madison Brengle.
Twenty-four of the top 25 women’s tennis players in the world are playing in the tournament. The only exception is world No. 2 Maria Sharapova, who withdrew with a right leg strain.
Maria Sharapova, who withdrew with a right leg strain she said she suffered while training a few days ago.
"I did everything possible to be ready, but my doctors have advised me that I can’t compete next week," Sharapova said in a statement.