"Oh my God, I do suck" - Eugenie Bouchard revisits online hate's impact on her; admits it's "human nature to care what other people think"

Eugenie Bouchard has spoken about how being subject to online hate affected her after she burst on to the scene and started making a name for herself on the WTA Tour. The Canadian admitted that repeatedly reading and hearing negative things about herself deeply affected her.

Bouchard's breakthrough came in the 2013 season and the following year, she broke into the top 5 of the WTA Tour rankings after her run to the final of the Wimbledon Championships. Earlier in 2014, she also clinched her maiden WTA Tour-level title at the 2014 Nurnberger Versicherungscup.

Unsurprisingly, her meteoric rise to the top of women's tennis made her a much-talked about figure, and she would go on to face significant social media scrutiny whenever she would hit a bad patch of form.

Recently, the former World No. 5 featured as a guest on the Nothing Major podcast. During her appearance on the podcast, she reflected on the evolution of criticism directed at tennis players over the last decade.

According to the Canadian, around ten years ago, players were judged solely based on their on-court performances, and that things have changed these days. Bouchard suggested that nowadays, players are free to pursue other ventures even during their active tennis careers without worrying about criticism.

"Back in the day, you really had to do only tennis or else you would get hate, and then I think the pendulum has swung so far the other way these days, which is a positive because now, it's actually like, 'Oh, if you don't have your own skin care line and you don't have a foundation line, what are you doing?'. So I think it's great that players nowadays can not only play tennis, and do a bunch of other stuff and not get the hate for it that I experienced," Bouchard said. (17:04)

The 2014 Wimbledon Championships finalist went on to state that players who claim that online negativity does not affect them are "lying", opining that it's an inherent trait of human beings to pay attention to others' opinions about them.

"Look it's just human nature to care what other people think about you. So, I think anyone who says they don't care at all is lying. Everyone cares a little bit what other people think. I think it's just nature," Bouchard added. (17:55)

The Canadian also recollected how she became a victim of "brainwashing" by repeatedly reading and hearing the derogatory remarks about her online whenever she would experience a run of poor form.

"So, back in the day, definitely when I first broke on to the scene, I did well and then I struggled for the next year, I was obviously hearing negative stuff and I feel like brainwashing works. So I would hear over and over again, like, negative stuff about myself and I started believing it because it was getting into my brain. I was like, 'Oh wow! I did lose six matches in a row', 'Oh my God, I do suck'," Bouchard stated.

Bouchard's final words about the subject included the confession that it took her time to "rewire" and not let online negativity affect her state of mind.

"So it took me a while to kind of rewire my brain to get out of that negative thinking but it totally affects you so you have to really have those boundaries of not checking or finding solutions to not let it affect you so much," Bouchard concluded.

Eugenie Bouchard finds herself ranked at a lowly World No. 517 now, with the peak of her tennis career seemingly behind her

Eugenie Bouchard (Source: Getty)/

Since 2015, Bouchard has had persistent spells of bad form, which have subsequently had an impact on her rankings. Things went from bad to worse for the Canadian in 2021, when she suffered a right shoulder tear in the final of the Abierto Zapopan. Bouchard had to undergo surgery to have any chance of recovering from the injury.

A 17-month hiatus followed, with the Canadian slipping out of the WTA Tour rankings altogether. Even though she returned to action in 2022, she has been unable since then to rediscover the kind of form that propelled her into the WTA top 10 a decade back.

However, the silver lining for Bouchard came in 2023, when she played a starring role in doubles for Canada's Billie Jean King Cup title triumph. Since then, the Canadian has gathered experience in pro pickleball, even though she has made a handful of appearances at tennis tournaments this year.

The former World No. 5's last tennis outing came in the first round of qualifying at the National Bank Open in Toronto. Bouchard lost the qualifying match to Japan's Moyuka Uchijima.