A former Wimbledon finalist was rushed to hospital after suffering a freak injury while playing pickleball.
Eugenie Bouchard, 30, from Canada, is a professional tennis star but also plays pickleball, which is a game that combines elements of badminton, tennis and table tennis and can be played indoors or outdoors.
Active on the pickleball tour, she has achieved various successes in the sport, including a victory over world No. 3 Lea Jansen. She is one of several former professional tennis players to make the jump, also including Jack Sock and Donald Young.
In tennis, meanwhile, she has an individual title to her name and a career-high ranking of fifth in the world. He is currently ranked 1007, 10 years after his career high.
She reached the final of Wimbledon in 2014, losing to Petra Kvitova, while also reaching the semi-finals of the Australian and French Opens in her most successful year in the sport.
And while he continues to try to spin several plates, his immediate attention is focused on his health, after ending up in the hospital with a freak sports injury.
Eugenie Bouchard was rushed to the hospital after suffering a strange injury playing pickleball.
The former Wimbledon finalist took to social media to share the news with her 2.3 million followers.
The Canadian explained how the injury was caused by “a shaft of my partner’s paddle directly into the eye.”
She reached a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world in 2014, and missed the Wimbledon final.
On Instagram, the star told her 2.3 million followers: “I got hit in the eye with a pickle ball during training today.
“It was a handle from my partner’s paddle straight into my eye. I went to the emergency room and my cornea was scratched.
‘The things we do for this sport! It will be cured in a matter of days.
Accompanying the posts were two photos of the star: one showing her swollen eye, which was closer, and another with her thumbs up while putting on an eye patch.
It wasn’t the first time he participated in the pickleball wars, either. Last month, an opponent threw the ball at him at point-blank range, although it did not cause lasting injuries.
As a young man, Bouchard was an up-and-coming tennis star, achieving his breakthrough in 2014, when he was just 20 years old.
In 2012, she won the Wimbledon women’s title as a junior, before being named WTA Newcomer of the Year at the end of the 2013 Tour. In 2014, she was announced as the winner of the WTA Most Improved Player award.
Born in Montreal, she started playing tennis when she was only five years old. When he was 12 years old, he moved to Florida to train with Nick Saviano.
She continued to achieve success as a youth and won the Canadian Under-18 Indoor Championships when she was just 15 years old, quickly establishing herself as one of her country’s top players.
Bouchard had great success in 2014, but his career quickly declined after that.
She lost her world ranking in 2022 while facing 17 months out injured with a shoulder problem.
In pickleball, he has won a total of 29 matches in his career and has participated in 17 tournaments.
Her success at the Wimbledon Junior Championships in 2012 was the catalyst for her breakthrough, and she soon joined the WTA Tour before a stormy year in 2014. However, things went downhill from there.
In 2018 he was outside the world’s top 100 and lost his world ranking in 2022 when he suffered a 17-month layoff due to a shoulder injury.
In September 2023, he surprised fans by announcing that he would be joining the Professional Pickleball Association for the 2024 season and shares updates from his journey on social media.
In total, he has won 29 matches in his career and lost 51. As of this month, he has competed in 17 professional tournaments and played 80 professional matches.