Bouchard tunes out haters with focus set on winning

Eugenie Bouchard has been evolving in  the public eye since her bursting onto the global scene in 2014. The former world No. 5 spoke about her career, off-court life and online presence on this week's TENNIS.com Podcast.

She pointed out something that should be obvious: her social media feed is what she chooses to share of her life, not the complete picture. For example, after practicing all day, she might post a selfie from dinner and then have to deal with comments like "you should be playing tennis".

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“I just don’t value the opinions of people who are out there just judging what I put out there,” Bouchard said. “I went through the whole spectrum of wanting to post, not wanting to post, being scared, being like, ‘eff all of you guys, I’m going to still live my life. I just don’t even care anymore, it’s just exhausting.”

The 26-year-old admitted that the public has influenced her online behavior as she's grown older, but she still tries to let it go.

"Maybe I’m just getting more mature and I’m like, ‘Look, I’m not going to post butt pictures every day," she said.

“I’ve been through that wave so many times. It just sucks. People think social media is an exact representation of your day when it’s not," the world No. 330 said. “I can go running for eight hours then go to dinner and post a selfie and people think I just went to dinner. People need to realize it’s only what people choose to show, that’s what’s out there."

Having a huge social media following—she has over 2 million followers on Instagram—has a lot of upside though, like being able to connect with more brands and sponsors.

“The No. 1 question brands ask is, ‘What’s the following?’' Bouchard said. "It’s all about that… It’s a way of valuing people, I guess, which is superficial in a way. We’re all human, but it’s a way to put a number on people.”

Bouchard's most recent Instagram posts have been more about on tennis anyways as she spent the five-month shutdown training hard in Las Vegas, thriving in West Virginia at World TeamTennis and now making the most of a wild card in Prague.

She took out No. 8 seed Veronika Kudermetova in her first round for her first WTA win since January, and then beat Tamara Zidansek on Thursday.

Bouchard will next play Elise Mertens in the quarterfinals on Friday, marking her second quarterfinal appearance of the year after Auckland.

Check out the latest episode of the TENNIS.com Podcast with Genie Bouchard:

Subscribe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tennis-com-podcast/id339875623 | https://open.spotify.com/show/2ihq5SJ8N72EsloO9XunbW