MELBOURNE, Australia -- There was a time not so long ago when Coco Vandeweghe's blunt answer to a reporter Friday would've seemed delusional, egotistical or both.
The hard-hitting Vandeweghe has never been to a Wimbledon final or the semis of the French or Australian Opens, all accomplishments Eugenie Bouchard reeled off in 2014, just her second year on tour. But when asked where her razor-close 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 third-round victory over Bouchard ranked in her career, Vandeweghe shot back, "Actually, not that high."
Which said a lot.
Whatever is going on with recently dethroned world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who made an early exit from this tournament Thursday in a seismic upset, continues to be a legitimate mystery.
But that's less true about the morass that the 47th-ranked Bouchard has been mired in since success left her almost as quickly as she found it.
The Montreal native will turn 23 next month and is still young enough to write a happy ending. But in the space of two and a half years, she has gone from being touted as one of the candidates to someday succeed Serena Williams at No. 1 to another cautionary tale about how much can go wrong on the path to presumed greatness.
Some of the blame seems to fall on Bouchard and her camp. Some of it not. There's been bad luck and injuries. But the net effect is, people are now asking, "Whatever became of Genie Bouchard?" more than they're counting on her to roar back into the top 10 rankings as she did during that exceptional run she had as a 19-year-old. As Bouchard herself admitted here, two days before her loss to Vandeweghe, "It's been a long haul."
She continued: "I'm not thinking about the past anymore. I'm tired of thinking about it. I'm tired of talking about it. There's no point. For me, it's only the future, and what I'm doing right now. I've learned to persevere no matter what, and no matter what anyone around me says. It's hard not to hear those other voices. But it's something I am getting better at."
It's a very good answer, in theory. It's just been harder for her to accomplish in real life. There was a heavy air of predestination surrounding Bouchard after she won the 2013 Wimbledon junior title at 18 and then made it to the 2014 Wimbledon final. She shot to No. 7 in the world rankings. By then, Bouchard and her family seemed swept up in the grand assumptions, too. Stability was fleeting.
Before her parents divorced, Bouchard's father, Michel, an investment banker, tried to claim her as a tax deduction as part of a limited partnership he set up in which he proposed to contribute to the costs of her tennis career in exchange for 10 percent of her career winnings. He eventually wound up losing a long fight with the Canadian government, which ended with a ruling that Eugenie, as a 9-year-old, could not have reasonably consented to signing away her future earnings.
From the ages of 12 to 15, she moved with her mother to Florida so she could train year-round. Even then, there were many stories touting her competitive drive, her ambition, her aggressive groundstrokes and court coverage. Ralph Platz, one of her Canadian national junior team coaches, told a Globe & Mail reporter in 2014 a story about asking Bouchard her name the first time. Platz said: "She looked at me like she was almost disgusted that I didn't know who she was. She put her hand on her hip and said, 'I'm Eugenie Bouchard' and walked off."
Later, even Bouchard laughed and told reporters, "I can be a princess." She grew up in an affluent Montreal suburb on the same street as former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, and her mother quite literally named her, her twin sister, Beatrice, and younger brother William after members of the British royal family, a fact the British media ate up when she was enjoying her 2014 Wimbledon run.
But the troubles started almost immediately after that. Bouchard returned home a few weeks later to play the Rogers Cup in Montreal, and she was treated like a conquering hero before she bombed out in the first round with a loss to Shelby Rogers.
It was the first hint that the hype was getting to Bouchard. There have been many other examples since.
Bouchard has had sporadic success here and there. She made the semifinals in Sydney just before this tournament, but has been stuck in a mid-40s ranking for a better part of two years.
As for her bad luck with injuries, none was worse than the concussion she suffered in a locker room spill after she'd advanced to the fourth round of the 2015 US Open. Bouchard battled post-concussion problems the rest of the year, including dizziness, and hardly played. She ended up suing the U.S. Tennis Association, and the case is pending.
She's torn through coaches in her career, bouncing from her childhood coach, Nick Saviano, to Nathalie Tauziat to Sam Sumyk, back to Saviano, then on to Thomas Hogstedt, back to Saviano and now back to Hogstedt, a stoic Swede who sat in Bouchard's player box Friday.
After failing to hold a third-set lead, Bouchard spoke to the media about the pressure of having to serve first in the final frame. She mentioned having to play good players back-to-back -- all normal parts of the gig in tennis at this level.
Vandeweghe is a high-risk, high-reward player who hits heavy groundstrokes and tries to end points quickly with winners. But Bouchard twice had plenty of time to set her feet and line up a forehand on the most pivotal points in their match -- once when she was trying to stop Vandeweghe from breaking back against her in the last set, and again as Vandeweghe was trying to get to match point.
Bouchard blasted the ball long both times, sealing her defeat.
To her credit, Bouchard doesn't sugarcoat the reasons it happens. She confessed that the pressure gets to her now and then. She described how her nerves start jangling and how she needs to stay positive when things are going bad. After her second-round win over China's Shuai Peng here, Bouchard said, "I feel better about my game than I have in a while, but then that leads me to put more pressure on myself, and then I play badly again. It's sort of like a vicious cycle."
It was sad to hear Bouchard say that. Even daring to believe in herself a little can create anxiety for her now. But it also shows how hard the life of a tennis pro can be. It illuminates how much the players who do find a way to last -- let alone prosper -- are able to handle. You don't get paid if you don't win, and you don't win a lot if you're not mentally and physically unsinkable. You can have the looks of a starlet and all the endorsements in the world, but losing stills feel like a soul-deadening exercise.
Whatever has gone on with Eugenie Bouchard is still possible to turn around. But it will not happen this year in Melbourne, the place her most magical stretch as a pro started.
What she's trying not to accept is the idea that it might always stay like this.
"It sucks" to lose this early, she said Friday.
When asked for her plans now, she sighed and said, "Not too sure.
"Unfortunately, I'll have to go book a flight."
