Introducing Eugenie Bouchard - A dozen curious facts about the rising tennis star

7. Prize Scalps: Over the past year, Bouchard has earned many opportunities to mix it up with the big stars of the game. And the results have been far from disappointing. In fact, she was among just a few players who managed to take a set off Serena Williams during her domineering run last season. After stretching Serena the distance at the Western & Southern Open, Eugenie went on to mete out similar treatment to Venus Williams in the quarterfinals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open. Before she could test the elder Williams though, Bouchard had to come through Sloane Stephens and Jelena Jankovic in three and two sets respectively. But her most notable scalp last year was Ana Ivanovic, who she trounced 6-3, 6-3 in the second round of Wimbledon. She already has four top 20 wins and more seem certain to follow.

8. The decision to turn professional: While there was little doubt about the potential of Eugenie, she had other interests – football and basketball among them. But it was tennis that the little girl was completely hooked to. Her first competitive victory at the age of eight and her subsequent travel to Paris a year later cemented her desire to pursue a career traveling around the world for the game of tennis.

Canadian Tennis Player Eugenie Bouchard competes in The 2nd Annual Raonic Race For Kids Fundraiser Benefitting The Milos Raonic Foundation on November 19, 2013 in Toronto, Canada.

9. Expert’s pick: The who’s who of tennis including people such as Darren Cahill believe that Bouchard has the tools and technique needed for success at the highest levels. The legendary Martina Navratilova went a step further – “she has a technically sound game and she constructs points well,” told Navratilova to Wimbledon.com immediately after the upset of Ivanovic last year. “If she continues like this she will be top 20 at least by the end of the year. I don’t want to say a star is born but we have seen a potential Grand Slam champion here.”

10. Idols: Bouchard idolises Maria Sharapova and Roger Federer for their style and skills. Outside of tennis, the Canadian is all admiration for the rags to riches story of Justin Bieber, whose self made life inspires Eugenie in the pursuit of her own dreams.

11. Putting Canada back on the map: In reaching the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, Bouchard became the first Canadian to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal since Patricia Hy-Boulais got through to the last eight at the 1992 US Open. Eugenie now has the opportunity to upstage Carling Bassett-Seguso at the 1984 US Open (falling to Chris Evert). Bouchard will need an encore of Wimbledon 2013, where she defeated Ana Ivanovic in the second round.

12. Alternative career: If her tennis career did not take off – and that is an almost impossible if, given her immense talents – Eugenie had an alternative in mind. Where most travelers despise time in the airports, the young woman seems to have learnt to enjoy the necessary evil and embrace it too. She loves spending time at the airports and has long craved an experience as an Air Traffic Controller. Bouchard thinks it is really cool that she could sit in the ATC tower and control a large bird, irrespective of whether she even has a license to drive a car.

“I know it’s kind of weird but I want to be an air traffic controller,” Bouchard told the Sydney Morning Herald in December last year. “I spent so much time in airports and on planes and I’m always sitting there looking up at the tower and I’m like, ‘What on earth are they doing up there? I heard it’s such a high-stress job they can only do it for two years and then you have to stop before you get burnt out. For me, I love that – those high-stress, high-pressure situations. I enjoy those moments. It would be so cool to be up there and landing 747s from Japan and wherever.”

That in part explains the toughness that she exhibited in her encounters against Sloane Stephens and Venus last year or in her match with Casey Dellacqua at this year’s Australian Open. Let us just hope that the young girl is able to retain her hunger and maintain her calm as she climbs up the ladder of women’s tennis.