Genie Bouchard Lost Out On Big Payday With Wimbledon Stumble

Genie Bouchard was just one step away from bringing a women’s Wimbledon title home to her native Canada. Unfortunately for Genie, she fell short of the championship losing in straight sets to Petra Kvitova 6-3, and 6-0.

While Bouchard had become known as the new darling of women’s tennis, the finals match didn’t last an hour and might have been a more serious setback to Genie’s career than even she realizes at this point.

Canadian newspaper The Star reports that the Wimbledon loss might have been a serious hit to Genie Bouchard’s wallet as well as her professional career. Because she had risen up the ranks as one of the game’s most popular women players, there were quite a few people and companies lining up to sign her to some rather lucrative contracts.

While she will still likely be able to secure some decent sponsorship deals in her native Canada, falling short of this title could cost Genie millions of dollars.

Experts in this particular field are claiming that, had Bouchard actually won Wimbledon, she would have landed numerous seven figure sponsorship deals.

Bouchard has everything that companies are often looking for when it comes to naming their next spokesperson. She’s young, seems to be able to handle herself well, and she’s quite attractive.

It has been her looks, as well as Genie’s play on the court, that captured the world’s attention last week, and that attention could have meant that Bouchard was nearly set for life with a victory.

It is more than just her looks and charisma that would have earned her those deals, and it’s also why falling short has also made many of those deals fall through. Experts claim that winning championships like Wimbledon give the winner a kind of presence that can’t be matched even by model-athletes like Anna Kournikova.

Vijay Setlur, who teaches sports marketing at York University in Canada, talked to The Star about that aura, saying:

“Champions (project) hard work, humility, perseverance, and those are all qualities and attributes other brands like to associate with.”

Setlur added that even though Genie managed to get farther than any other Canadian has managed to do at Wimbledon, Bouchard’s loss only demonstrated that the 20-year-old has potential.

Genie now needs to show that getting to the finals wasn’t a one-shot deal. If Bouchard can mimic the success she had in this tournament going forward, she might still see a big payday.

If Genie Bouchard can’t get back to this level, she will be another footnote in women’s tennis faster than anyone expected.