Eugenie Bouchard: The Marketing Can Wait

The thought process for most monetarily minded tennis observers went much like this whilst watching the Wimbledon women's singles final this past Saturday:

To her credit, Bouchard has said she doesn't care to be "the next big marketing icon," that she doesn't want to be seen as the second coming of Maria Sharapova or anyone else. Even so, that comment at Wimbledon must be a lillywhite lie on some very real level. From the standpoints of both income and glory, Bouchard would have loved to have won Wimbledon this month. But, as Lindsay Davenport put it, it's not that she played bad tennis against Petra Kvitova in acquiescing 6-3, 6-0; it's that she barely got to play tennis.

The brilliant thing about Bouchard's response to the thrashing Kvitova laid out in their showdown, aside from her poised and gracious meeting with press after that finale, is that she remains hungry for true success. She even wrote it in a tweet:

"She's charismatic," says Cary Kaplan, president and owner of marketing firm Cosmo Sports. "She is very focused. You don't have the impression that she will wilt away." Bouchard may yet come to find a silver spoon on her lips—but the taste of what's on it will be all the sweeter, as she will have flat-out earned it. Every interview she gives reveals that what she truly craves is to be known as the best in her field. Let the season's Grand Slam denouement harbor its $3 million winner's purse. This one counts titles in her sleep, not dollars. New York City awaits.

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