The Eugenie Bouchard effect

Canadian tennis is enjoying a rare moment in the sun — thanks to two young tennis stars — that are turning heads around the world. Milos Raonic has been doing it for a couple of years now. But more and more tennis fans are starting to fall under the spell of “the ‘genie effect.”

Eugenie Bouchard may not be in line for the biggest prize at Roland Garros this year, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a big pay-day coming.

Vijay Setlur is with York University: “Her star is on the rise, all she needs to do now is back up the hype with some results at some events — especially the grand slam events and the sky’s the limit for her.”

Vijay is a sport marketing instructor at York’s Schulich Business School. He’s already impressed by the massive potential, of ” The Genie Effect “: “She’s very no nonsense and that’s incredible given her young age — her looks obviously has a lot to do with her persona, her maturity, her command of the english language, given that she’s from Quebec. English is not an issue — so she has the total Pkg.”

The effect can already be seen, working its magic on Canadian tennis fans:

Erin Garner: “I don’t watch a lot of women’s tennis, I tend to follow the mens, but watching her has intrigued me, and i’m watching women’s tennis a lot more now.”

Matt Pearson: “She’s made great progress over the last year. She was top 100 in the beginning, and now she’s 18 in the world.”

That’s been good enough for ” The Genie Effect ” , to draw in a few sponsors — but Setlur says, to reach the level of the woman who she took to a third set this morning — Bouchard is going to have to win some big tournaments of her own: “Until she starts winning championships, especially grand slams, then that’s when her marketability and her potential will really take off.”

But Peter Giacomelli says — Canadians shouldn’t wait for that development — to fall under the spell of the Genie effect: “Sometimes I think we wait too long for these champions to appear, before we know who they really are, so I think she should be gettin’ more press time.”