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Genie's 2015 - Off Season - Season Review

6K views 44 replies 13 participants last post by  Djo-Coeur 
#1 · (Edited)
Australian Summer



RR - Lucie Safarova def. Genie Bouchard 6-0 6-4
RR - Genie Bouchard def. Serena Williams 6-2 6-1
RR - Genie Bouchard def. Flavia Pennetta 6-3 6-4



R1 - Genie Bouchard def. Anna-Lena Friedsam 6-2 6-4
R2 - Genie Bouchard def. Kiki Bertens 6-1 6-3
R3 - Genie Bouchard def. Caroline Garcia 7-5 6-0
R4 - Genie Bouchard def. Irina-Carmelia Begu 6-1 5-7 6-2
QF - Maria Sharapova def. Genie Bouchard 6-3 6-2​

_______________________________________________

The year started well for Genie. After a few exhos in Perth to ease into the year she played 3 good matches to make it into the 2nd week of her 5th slam in a row. She choked away a big lead against Begu, but regrouped and won it in 3, but then was without a chance against Sharapova.

Hard Court Spring​



R1 - BYE
R2 - Mona Barthel def. Genie Bouchard 4-6 6-1 6-2



R1 - BYE
R2 - Genie Bouchard def. Lucie Hradecka 6-2 6-2
R3 - Genie Bouchard def. Coco Vandeweghe 6-3 6-2
R4 - Lesia Tsurenko def. Genie Bouchard 6-7 7-5 6-4



R1 - BYE
R2 - Tatjana Maria def. Genie Bouchard 6-0 7-6​

_______________________________________________

Returning home from Australia it became known that Genie had hired Sam Sumyk, long-time coach of Azarenka. Most people were pretty upbeat about that initially, it looked like a great hire. In Antwerp though she was hampered by an arm injury that also forced her to withdraw from the tournaments in Dubai and Mexico. She played reasonably well in the early rounds of Indian Wells, but then, playing an injured Tsurenko she injured her abdomen in the match, lost, and with that an incredible series of WTF-losses started. Getting bageled by Tadde Maria was far from the low-point of her season...

Clay Season​



R1 - BYE
R2 - Lauren Davis def. Genie Bouchard 6-3 6-1



R1 - Barbora Strycova def. Genie Bouchard 0-6 6-3 6-3



R1 - BYE
R2 - Genie Bouchard def. Zarina Diyas 6-3 6-4
R3 - Carla Suarez Navarro def. Genie Bouchard 6-7 7-5 7-6



R1 - Kristina Mladenovic def. Genie Bouchard 6-4 6-4​

_______________________________________________

Now it's getting really bad. After getting trashed by Lauren Davis in Charleston she somehow gets urged into playing Fed Cup where the infamous Handshake-incident No.2 happened. She refuses to pose for a pre-match handshake picture with Dulgheru, manages to lose to Dulgheru, gets mocked, proceeds to lose to Mitu, too. And it only got worse from there. After an first-round exit in Madrid she beats Diyas (and served out the match in only 3 attempts) she played the mother of all choking matches against Suarez Navarro, serving for the match multiple times, only to double fault twice at *7-6 in the final set tiebreak. Paris was over quickly, too.

Grass Season​



R1 - Yaroslava Shvedova def. Genie Bouchard 6-4 1-6 6-4



R1 - BYE
R2 - Kiki Mladenovic def. Genie Bouchard 6-3 4-6 6-0



R1 - BYE
R2 - Genie Bouchard def. Alison Riske 7-6(3) 6-3
R3 - Belinda Bencic def. Genie Bouchard 6-4 3-0 ret



R1 - Ying-Ying Duan def. Genie Bouchard 7-6(3) 6-4​

_______________________________________________

It's a tough competition, but I would nominate this as the worst part of her season. 2 early losses in her first two tune-ups, including another big wasted lead against mental giant Slava were briefly remedied by a win over Genie's favorite person, Alison Riske. She actually started off fairly competitive against Belinda, but the ab injury from Indian Wells reappeared mid-match and Genie was forced to retire. Hampered by injury Genie suffers the worst loss of her year, being straight-setted by a beached super tanker in Wimbledon, the place where she won her junior slam and made the final last year.

US Open Series​



R1 - Belinda Bencic def. Genie Bouchard 6-0 5-7 6-2



R1 - Genie Bouchard def. Kateryna Bondarenko 7-6 7-6
R2 - Elina Svitolina def. Genie Bouchard 7-6 7-5



R1 - Roberta Vinci def. Genie Bouchard 6-1 6-0



R1 - Genie Bouchard def. Alison Riske 6-4 6-3
R2 - Genie Bouchard def. Polona Hercoq 6-3 6-7 6-3
R3 - Genie Bouchard def. Dominica Cibulkova 7-6 4-6 6-3
R4 - Roberta Vinci def. Genie Bouchard w/o​
_______________________________________________

Recovering from her injury (forced to withdraw from Washington), she fires Sam Sumyk and actually looks slightly improved. A loss to Belinda in 3 sets is nothing to be ashamed about given that Bencic went on to maul everything the WTA has to offer in this tournament. A mediocre showing in Cincy was followed by a shocking loss to Vinci in New Haven. All of a sudden, a wild Jimmy Connors appears in New York and Genie plays her best tournament since Australia. But after a great win against Pome, a high quality match by both players, Genie slips and falls in the locker room and hits her head, forced to withdraw from the tournament.

Asia​



R1 - Andrea Petkovic def. Genie Bouchard 6-2 1-1 ret​
________________________________________________

Concussed by her accident in New York Genie is forced to withdraw from the first two tournaments of the Asian swing. She gives it a try in Beijing, but mid-match against Petko the symptoms of her concussion reappear and she has to retire. Then she calls it season.

Outlook​

________________________________________________

She worked with Thomas Högstedt on a trial basis in Asia, which to me looks like a good choice. But given her health struggles and the unpredictably of concussions I really don't know where she goes from here. Hoping for the best I guess.
 
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#2 ·
WOW!

Thank you so much for this amazing summary, so helpful to see the year all in one place, and I think you've presented Genie's outcomes in such a clear and fair way. IT becomes easier to see the big picture, as you've so generously laid it out here.

And the loss to Vinci wasn't so shocking afterall, was it? We all know what Vinci's done since then, and that was on the eve of the USO.

It also occurred to me that many of Genie's spring losses, such as Svitolina and Mladenovic, were to players who were on a streak and on their way up. So Genie was still losing much of the time, but it was nothing like the losses to Maria and Tsurenko.

Thanks again for this fantastic summary.
 
#6 ·
Well, it would be surprising to see Wozniacki tweeting her at 4AM but how hard is it to reply with a few nice words?

It's very telling how she thinks a nice tweet from a fellow player means she's been hacked. Wozniacki was probably the only WTA player that reached out and she humiliated her. Burning Wozniacki like that will destroy any hope of any goodwill from any other WTA player.

Her sponsors will probably pay her for doing nothing and just wait for the contracts to end because she's out of control.
 
#10 ·
Wait, so Woz actually went with "I'm hacked"? WTF? :lol:

Who hacks Woz' twitter account and then all he/she does is write benign messages to Genie? How does Genie deduct "Oh she's hacked" from "Hi"? And why would she wait 2 months to say something about it?

I'm confused.
 
#13 ·
I would assume, that Genie more or less got this by accident.
I mean, how many DMs would arrive at her account day by day? Probably hundreds, thousands.
She's definetely not going to read them all, will she? Probably look over them from time to time.
Would she even know, it was Wozniackis real account without checking?
But why would you check, if you get hundreds of messages day by day?
Maybe I'm not getting a fact, because I never used Twitter, though.

And I think Genie made clear, that she thought Caro was hacked by one of her tweets, so well, even IF it was Wozniacki, which I highliy doubt, there wasn't any mean action behind Genies tweet.
 
#11 ·
The more you think about this, the more confusing it gets. :hysteric:

- Caro wouldn't write "hi Genie" at 4 a.m. Zhuhai time before a tournament. Would she? :lol:
-If she was really concerned about Genie's health (not implausible, given that she visited Serena in the hospital), wouldn't she get in touch with Genie in a more personal way?
- Caro's Twitter followed and unfollowed Genie at least a half-dozen times since mid-Sept. (coinciding with the time the messages began). This even happened again yesterday...but Genie has always followed Caro.
- Caro apparently writes her DMs just like her tweets - with proper spelling and punctuation.
- Given some of Caro's past advertisement-type tweets, would a PR handler make this more or less likely? The "omg, I've been hacked" tweets seem to be written by PR, not Caro. :spit:

BUT...

-Why would a hacker only message Genie repeatedly over such a long period? Or is it a bot? :scratch:
- Why didn't Genie respond until now? Or was she in the dark room with her concussion most of this time and only just noticed? :hysteric:
- How is Genie so sure it's a hack? Did they already speak to each other since the US Open?
- Hacked or not, Genie should've kept this private. :eek: Maybe she thought it's funny. :weirdo:

I could never imagine something so weird and awkward to happen between two of my faves. :sobbing:
 
#15 ·
Someone from IMG should control her accounts.

She's probably bored out of mind if she's resting in Montreal while most of her friends are attending classes during the day and who knows what she may do next. :lol:

Very cynical but a little donation to Montreal's concussion center or something similar wouldn't hurt.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Ok, thanks for clarifying.

But either way. I just can't see Genie being that mean spirited, that she would have to be, had she planned this embarassement for Wozniacki, like GM is making it up.
This is just plain stupid to assume.
They follow each other on Twitter, so this looks like they indeed are on friendly terms with each other.

I can only repeat myself, with the smile in her tweet, everything points to Genie thinking Woz was indeed hacked, she had every reason to do so.
It was a funny way to inform Wozniacki, she was hacked actually.

Of course it's not so funny, if it was indeed Wozniacki sending private messages at 4 a.M. in the night, this would be an awkward situation, but nothing you should blame Genie for. :D


And memo to myself: Create a twitter account and get used to it.
Edit: DONE!
 
#22 ·
I don't think it's too hard to believe. There was a NY Times article about her last year. Among the things that could make you wonder, she has not much idea how much money she has and leaves all that 'stuff' to her agent and dad! Then she left the US Open without getting her prize money and had to go back! She decided she wanted to do the marathon, no stopping her. She appears to be a really nice person but a little dumb. Can easily suspect that her password was very weak, something like the name of her dog!
 
#21 ·
So i wonder if she will keep working with Hogstedt next year? I was growing quite fond of Jimmy Connors idea because clearly his words had some kind of positive effect on her @ USO15. Maybe he can still mentor her and be a confidence booster of sorts. :)
 
#25 ·
So, the USTA are basically saying she should not have been in the room without consent/authorised personnel?

And apparently the room she supposedly fell in is 'never dark'. Surely it's easy to prove whether this is the case? If this is the case, I just don't understand why she, her mother, or her advisers, would bother to file these charges when Bouchard's claims could easily be proved wrong.

It's just more negative press and more distractions from tennis that she doesn't need. Sometimes I feel like Genie's in self destruct mode, or that she lacks basic intelligence and possesses zero qualities to observe what's happening around her and all the negative effects her choices seemingly have on her character and her career. Sometimes I don't know whether I'm more surprised at her choices, or that the people around her let her make these choices. I just don't get it tbh.
 
#26 ·
And apparently the room she supposedly fell in is 'never dark'. Surely it's easy to prove whether this is the case? If this is the case, I just don't understand why she, her mother, or her advisers, would bother to file these charges when Bouchard's claims could easily be proved wrong.
As far as I can remember Genie's complaint doesn't mention the lighting of the room, they only claim the floor was in a dangerous condition
 
#28 ·
Oh right, I didn't realise it wasn't. I wonder why the USTA felt they had to put that in their response then?

My point still stands for the unauthorised access to the room. Surely her team would have known/checked whether she was allowed in the room she fell in on her own before they filed?
 
#31 · (Edited)
Bouchard's lawyer, Benedict Morelli, calls USTA response "very predictable ... what they decided to do is blame the victim

"We have a very strong case. I think somewhere in their heart of hearts they know that."

Bouchard's lawyer, says Genie was still experiencing symptoms as of two weeks ago; returning to practice this week

it's too early to tell if this will go to trial; notes there's "always sabre-rattling at this stage"

"They said somewhere ... that they’re going to affirmatively prove everything in court, trust me they’re not"

https://twitter.com/markhmasters
 
#32 ·
The case was always going to be the USTA saying she didn't take the proper precautions, we didn't authorize her to be there, versus the USTA didn't live up to its duty of care.

The truth is somewhere in the middle as always in these things. But they always have to start from the position that the other party is 100% to blame. Just part of the game. If your lawyer didn't start from that position I'd tell you to fire the guy on the spot. You have to start from that spot and work your way through it.

For the same reason, things like negotiations between a company and union always goes to the deadline. If your negotiating team didn't take it to the brink, how could they look you in the eye and claim they got everything they could. It's just respect for the process.

Both of them have their own number in mind, we'll see if they're close enough to get to a settlement or if they're so far apart they go to the all or nothing proposition of a trial.
 
#33 ·
Blah-blah-blah. Time to pay, USTA. Lock out rooms that present dangerous conditions or do your cleaning when players have left. Its not rocket science.

Really sad to hear that she still can not even think about training because of the symptoms. Start of the next year more and more in question.
 
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