Genie Bouchard idolized Maria Sharapova, but that won’t dictate her future

Eugenie Bouchard is racing against time.

"I just turned 20 three months ago and I feel old," she told the Wall Street Journal’s Tom Perrotta.

"So I want to be the best player I can be as quickly as possible, because one day I will wake up and I will be 30."

I feel old.

On the surface, that’s the sort of claim made by an incredibly stoned freshman who just finished reading Infinite Jest. But Bouchard is a tennis player and time doesn’t wait for its ilk to become hardened veterans. One day, Eugenie Bouchard will be 30. For the rest of us, that means delving into the prime years of our lives. For tennis players, that means finding a new career.

Maria Sharapova, the player the Canadian is so often compared to, was in Bouchard’s position many years ago.

She won Wimbledon in 2004, beating Lindsay Davenport and Serena Williams along the way. At 17, Sharapova was the third-youngest woman to win a Grand Slam singles title. At the time, the Russian teenager’s achievement was considered one of the most stunning results in tennis history.

Life never went back to normal for Maria. Blessed with good looks, a deft ability to handle the media, and a propensity to scream when she struck the ball, tennis had found its newest “it girl.”

Bouchard is approaching a similar moment. Many of the reasons that made Sharapova the star of women’s tennis are shared by Bouchard. Commentators clumsily mention it, and some male fans can’t go three minutes without overzealously shouting it, even midpoint.

She’s young, pretty, and can play damn good tennis.

Surely if Wimbledon didn’t have laws against this sort of thing, Sharapova would have been asked who she would like to date after one of her wins 10 years ago, like Bouchard was in Melbourne this year. The fact male players aren’t asked the same type of inane garbage as the women are is a conversation for another day.

On Thursday, Sharapova and Bouchard will meet in the semi-finals at the French Open. This could be another changing-of-the-guard moment tennis likes to provide, like Graf and Hingis or Sampras and Federer.

They met in 2002, when Sharapova was 15 and Bouchard was eight. Sharapova handpicked Bouchard to wear her signature Nike line last year. The marketing blitz Maria underwent back in 2004 is now being tailored for Genie. Stacey Allaster, the chief executive of the WTA, believes the Canadian’s attributes - "gracious, humble, confident, smart and funny, she is the whole package" - make the 20-year-old a marketer's dream.

The two players, though seven years apart in age, have other things in common. They’re not concerned about making “friends” on the tour. They won’t be Caroline Wozniacki and Serena Williams, palling around in Miami. 

"We're not friends,” said Bouchard on her relationship with Sharapova. “So there's that."

Sharapova seems equally concerned about age, rightfully more so than Bouchard. They thrive on adversity, as evidenced by their come from behind wins to get into the final four.

They’re ogled at by those who only find tennis enjoyable for the eye candy.

Sharapova and Bouchard share so much you could almost conclude this is part of a grand plot aimed at destroying our ability to discern who is who and what is what. That idiot college kid who just read Infinite Jest? That was me.

This match is about Bouchard carving out her own path, breaking from the ‘pretty face’ sub-category that was created by Sharapova and Anna Kournikova before her.

Sharapova is the favorite heading into their semi-final. She’s 17-1 on clay this year, and has won 52 of her last 56 matches on this surface. Sharapova will be playing in her 18th Grand Slam semifinal. This is Bouchard’s second.

The Russian feasts on youngsters. She’s 138-27 against opponents 20 years of age or younger. The last time they met was at the French last year, where Sharapova prevailed 6-2, 6-4 in straight sets.

History tells us Sharapova will coast into the final. The past two weeks, however, indicate we shouldn’t expect anything. Time and again, Eugenie Bouchard defied what she was expected to do at Roland Garros. She wasn’t supposed to enter a tune-up event that the top players avoided in Germany, and win. She wasn’t supposed to play so strongly in Paris after struggling mightily in the early portions of the European clay court season.

Bouchard defied logic in making it this far. Now, her next test is toppling the person she’s afraid she'll be 10 years from now.

Take it from Maria, Genie: Growing up isn't so bad, it's what you do along the way that matters.