By Richard Pagliaro | Monday, July 28, 2025
Photo credit: Robert Prange/Getty

A hometown farewell ignite fire in Genie Bouchard.

Playing the final tournament of her career before her home fans in Montreal, Bouchard turned back time with a rousing 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 win over world No. 82 Emiliana Arango.

Attacking relentlessly, the Canadian wild card rode a wave of energy from Montreal fans to score her first main-draw Tour-level win in more than two years.

“I always knew, of course, if I lost, it would be the last one be, but as soon as I got on the court, I really tried to take it like a regular match and really emphasize, like, the focus and just telling myself
what I wanted to do each point,” Bouchard said afterward. “I’m blocking out all the kind of consequences, and I’m, like, Okay, I’ll deal with all that stuff after, let me just play tennis and enjoy the toughness of what playing a WTA match is, because it’s tough out there.”

A physical three-set win required resilience from Bouchard, who handed Arango her first three-set defeat of the season.

Former world No. 5 Bouchard said her performance was a balancing act of savoring the physical pain while drawing on the pleasure and inspiration of Montreal fans exhorting her on nearly every point.

“You know, you have to kind of enjoy that pain, and so I did,” Bouchard said. “Then the crowd really was helpful in terms of motivating me and giving me energy, but at the same time, it’s almost– it can be a point where it’s almost so much that it can help me — it can make me lose my focus or I don’t want to
get kind of too kind of excited or too high because you still have the rest of the match to play.
So there were definitely moments where I had to kind of almost block out the noise and just pretend it was a normal point that just happened and just keep going because the crowd was very loud out there, and I really, really appreciated it.”

Refusing to surrender, Bouchard extended her career for at least one more match. The former Wimbledon finalist will face 2025 Wimbledon semifinalist and 2015 Canadian Masters champion Belinda Bencic next.

“She’s obviously a great player. It’s funny, I played here in Toronto ten years ago, and then she
ended up winning the tournament,” Bouchard said of Bencic. “So, yeah, I know it will be a crazy tough match. I’ll probably do stuff in practice tomorrow, kind of thinking about playing against her. She loves to take it early, change direction. So I’ve had some battles against her, so I’m looking forward to it.”