Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard Still Uncertain Over Rio Participation
Top Canadian female tennis player Eugenie Bouchard is still unsure whether she will make her Olympic debut at the Rio Games or not as she plans to take a last-minute decision over Zika virus fears.
“I’m kind of a last-minute person, so I’m going to make a decision next week, I guess, the week before [the Olympics],” Bouchard said in the post-match press conference (as quoted by NBC Sports) after her first-round loss to Camila Giorgi at the Citi Open in Washington on Tuesday.
Despite the World Health Organization assuring that the threat of the mosquito-borne disease is negligible, quite a few players have pulled out of the quadrennial event. Among these include Bouchard’s compatriot Milos Raonic, Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych, and Romania’s Simona Halep to name a few.
She added: “It’s just unfortunate because it would be my first Games, and to have a problem like this [Zika] dampening the excitement of potentially your first Olympic Games, it really sucks, to be honest. It’s something that I haven’t been thinking about. I’m just going to, like, wake up and make a decision.”
The tennis event is scheduled to run across August 6-14 at Rio de Janerio’s Olympic Tennis Centre.