Eugenie Bouchard gave herself credit for showing tennis players that there is a life outside of the sport.

The Canadian player became world-famous as a teenager when she made a surprise run at Wimbledon. She was also one of the most promising young players on the WTA Tour at the time.

Many anticipated a huge career for her, but things didn’t go as planned as she battled issues and injuries. One thing that also felt constricting was that everybody wanted to shove her into a box, dissuading her from looking at things outside of tennis.

As a person who had interests besides the sport, she didn’t allow that and wanted to try many different things, which she ended up doing.

Talking to The Times recently, she credited herself with ‘pioneering’ stepping outside of the tennis box as a tennis player, which we see a lot these days. It’s not just about tennis but also about players’ lives outside of the sport, but back when she was starting, not many were doing it.

“Back in the day, I felt like I was being shoved into a box, like you can’t do anything besides tennis. I was like, tennis has given me opportunities to explore the fashion world, TV and all these other things. Why would I say no? We’re talking about my life in its entirety here.”

“I would get so much hate for doing anything other than tennis. It was a burden I would bear on my shoulders and it was really hard. At least it’s more accepted now. Not that I was the only pioneer to do these things but I feel like I made it a little bit more normal.”

Bouchard has not given up on that approach. She’s even dabbled in pickleball recently as her tennis career hit another roadblock. She’s just always done things her way, and it’s worked well for her so far.