{"id":35598,"date":"2025-07-31T19:06:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T19:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/35598\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T19:06:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T19:06:13","slug":"eugenie-bouchard-sued-us-open-organisers-after-falling-in-locker-room-and-getting-burned-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/35598\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugenie Bouchard sued US Open organisers after falling in locker room and getting ‘burned’ | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eugenie Bouchard\u2019s career came to an end on Wednesday night<\/a> as she lost a tight match against 17th seed Belinda Bencic at her home tournament, the Canadian Open in Montreal. The 31-year-old enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2014, reaching the Wimbledon<\/a> final, winning her only title, and cracking the world\u2019s top five.<\/p>\n

But she failed to replicate her success moving forward, and in 2015, when she started to find form at the US Open, she was forced to withdraw from the tournament after slipping in the locker room and suffering a concussion. Bouchard sued the United States Tennis Association for damages and testified that she felt the chemical cleaning agents burning her skin \u201call over me\u201d.<\/p>\n

The former world No. 5 had advanced to the second week in singles, and was also in the women\u2019s doubles and mixed doubles draws, but she pulled out after falling on a recently cleaned, tiled floor in the trainers\u2019 room.<\/p>\n

Bouchard missed the rest of the season, playing just one match in Beijing and retiring with dizziness. The Canadian was ranked at No. 24 when she fell at the US Open, and dropped to No. 48 by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

She subsequently sued the organisers of the tournament, the USTA. At the trial in New York, Bouchard told jurors that she lost her footing walking into a training area and hit the floor flat on her back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was laying there shocked, staring at the ceiling,\u201d she testified. Having landed on the cleaning substances, Bouchard recalled: \u201cI screamed, \u2018Oh my God, it burns!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The USTA\u2019s lawyers said Bouchard should have known not to enter the room without a trainer or tournament personnel. A trainer, testifying on behalf of the USTA, said they assumed the Canadian had left.<\/p>\n

In 2018, the USTA was found to bear 75 per cent of the blame, and Bouchard 25 per cent. This meant the tennis body had to pay three-quarters of the sum that the court decided it owed Bouchard in damages.<\/p>\n

The former world No. 5\u2019s legal team sought millions in lost earnings. Bouchard\u2019s lawyer Benedict Morelli said: \u201cWhen you get 75 per cent or better, you can’t ever complain about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bouchard ultimately reached a settlement with the USTA, the terms of which were confidential. Speaking in February 2018, she said: \u201cIt\u2019s been two-and-a-half years, so I\u2019m happy it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel vindicated that I got the (jury) verdict yesterday. Just relief and happiness right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time the case concluded, Bouchard had dropped outside the top 100 in the rankings. But she showed glimpses of her best form later in 2018, qualifying for the US Open and winning her opening round main draw match – her first win there since her fall in 2015.<\/p>\n

Bouchard also reached the Luxembourg Open semi-final as a qualifier, and she started 2019 by winning her maiden doubles title alongside Sofia Kenin in Auckland. Since then, the Canadian has reached a couple of finals, but continued to struggle with lack of form and injuries.<\/p>\n

By the time she announced her retirement<\/a> earlier this month, the 31-year-old had already started playing on the professional pickleball tour. Bouchard got one last tour-level win over Emiliana Arango<\/a> in the first round of this week\u2019s Canadian Open before ending her career with a 6-2 3-6 6-4 loss to Bencic.<\/p>\n

To be the first to receive the latest tennis news, join our WhatsApp community<\/a> or newsletter<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eugenie Bouchard\u2019s career came to an end on Wednesday night as she lost a tight match against 17th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,24595,29900,85,747,750,1751,32455],"class_list":["post-35598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-eugenie-bouchard","tag-genie-bouchard","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-us-open","tag-usta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}