This is Eugenie Bouchard. She is a 19-year-old professional tennis player and she just made history, by becoming the first Canadian woman to advance to the semi-finals of the Australian Open in nearly thirty years. But who cares about that, because what's apparently most important about her is who she's dating!
Since I started working nights, I've been able to watch some of the Australian Open (which is most definitely not a yard sale at Russell Crowe's house and something I did not actually believe at all, not even for one second) and I've got to say, it's been completely great. Until this total bullshit moment right here.
After her win over Ana Ivanovic on Monday, Bouchard should have been doing a post-game interview about just how she managed to accomplish this most impressive feat. But NOPE! Instead, she got asked this:
"You're getting a lot of fans here," noted [Samantha] Smith, a former British tennis champ. "A lot of them are male, and they want to know: If you could date anyone in the world of sport, of movies – I'm sorry, they asked me to say this – who would you date?"
UGH. Because that's what's important. Of course.
Naturally, some other tennis fans were quite ticked off about this (because you know, they actually want to know about how she plays TENNIS, those silly fools)
For the record, she said she'd like to date fellow Canadian Justin Bieber, probably because it was the first name that came to mind while she was thinking WHY THE FUCK AM I BEING ASKED THIS CRAP. Bouchard, who has a small army of fans (many of them men) who call themselves the Genie Army, handled it sweetly and politely, probably a lot better than most people in a similar situation would have.
You'd think a sports journalist (and former player) such as Smith would know by now, in this day and age, that maybe it's a tad unprofessional and wholly obnoxious to gloss over the fact that a young athlete has just—literally seconds before—accomplished something monumental and instead bombard her with a dorky and pandering question about who she's dating. Seriously. Do you work for a sports network or friggin' Tiger Beat?
Anyway, congratulations to Bouchard on her big win! Here's to hoping she won't have to to answer anymore dumb questions that don't have to do with her tennis game.