How Can Eugenie Bouchard Qualify for Australian Open 2021?

The new season will present Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard with an opportunity to put her floundering career back on track.

Faced with a run of losses and an apparent loss of focus and interest from the sport, 26-year-old Bouchard took an indefinite break from tennis in 2019 to work on her health and get her compass back.

She announced her comeback bid by putting herself in the qualifiers for the Australian Open this year. However, she failed to make the main women’s draw after going down to Martina Trevisan of Italy in her final qualifying match.

For the next edition of the Australian Open in 2021, the Canadian star is faced with a quandary on whether she should apply for a wildcard entry to the main event or take the qualifier route as she did this year.

She has no chance of qualifying for the main women’s draw on the merit of her current WTA ranking.

All four Grand Slams have 128 slots and players. Both on the women’s and men’s circuits, players have to be within the Top-104 of the rankings to qualify automatically for the main draw.

Bouchard stands good chance of getting wildcard entry to Australian Open 2021

With Bouchard currently placed at 140 in the WTA rankings, she has to either apply for a wildcard or play the qualifiers to reach the main draw.

Though still a big name in women’s tennis, what may set the Canadian back in the race for wildcards is that players from the host country are given a measure of preference when it comes to deciding the wildcard picks. This is true as much for the Australian Open as it is for the other Grand Slam events.

However, the Canadian does stand a good chance of securing a wildcard entry to the tournament. The reason? She gave a fairly good account of herself this WTA season, especially in the Istanbul Open 2020 Finals.

She did incredibly well at French Open 2020 (therein she was issued a wildcard) and lost to the eventual champion Iga Swiatek. Also, being a former semi-finalist at the Australian Open would also boost her claim for a wildcard.

In the WTA roster, Tennis Australia has issued wildcards to Australian players Daria Gavrilova, Astra Sharma, Maddison Inglis, and Lizette Cabrera. One of the wildcards will be given to a participant from the Asia-Pacific region, and the other three are yet to be decided.

2020 was the first time Eugenie Bouchard failed to qualify for the year’s first Major

This year marked the first time since 2013 that the Canadian couldn’t qualify for the year’s first Major.

Bouchard did raise visions of playing the main event with two comfortable wins in her first two qualifying matches. However, her game, quite inexplicably, fell apart in the final qualifying tie.

Tennis fans will hope that Bouchard gets second time lucky this year if she does decide to play the qualifiers again.

Read More: Eugenie Bouchard Fails to Qualify for Australian Open 2020