Is Eugenie Bouchard ready to win a Grand Slam?

Eugenie Bouchard is a 20 year old. She is proficient in mathematics and science which made her consider a career as a physician. She started playing tennis at the age of five and her favourite tennis player is Roger Federer. Sound like the story of any other regular person? But Eugenie Bouchard is no ordinary 20 year old female; she is the World No. 8 in the current WTA rankings. Doesn’t impress you much? Try considering, she entered the Top 10 within a year of going professional.
Bouchard has had the most stupendous rise since finishing her Junior Circuit in 2012. In 2013, she climbed up the ladder with one impressive win after another over the likes of Samantha Stosur and Ana Ivanovic.  Going by the consistency in her performance and her ability to play under pressure, Bouchard was rightly named the ‘WTA Newcomer of the Year’ at the end of 2013. Obviously, these wins would have anyone thinking that this was Bouchard at her best, but the year 2014 has brought with it a whole new side to her game which would make us question the very word ‘best’ since 2014 was a year of creating many firsts for her.
Starting 2014, she became the first Canadian to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final since 1992 at the Australian Open. She went on to defeat Ivanovic to reach the Semi-final, which was her career-best performance at that point. She then won the first WTA singles title of her career at Nürnberger Versicherungscup, a warm-up to the French Open. She once again created a first by reaching the Semi-final of the French Open, defeating Angelique Kerber (another Top 10 ranked player) in the process.
The next Grand Slam, which is the Wimbledon, saw her taking her game onto the next-level. If Bouchard played like a blue-collar worker earlier, her gifted all-around game reached an altogether different level because of her badger-like ferocity. Through every match she played, she moved in on serves, crisscrossed stiff forehands, and faced her opponent with strength and nerve. She went on to defeat World No. 3 Simona Halep, to reach her first Grand Slam final. It also meant she had reached 3 consecutive Semi-finals in 2014, a record in itself.
Needless to say, there are high hopes from her at the upcoming US Open. A Grand Slam win seems like the most natural progression after consecutive Semi-final and Final appearances. But we need to be mindful of the fact that this will only be her seventh appearance in one of the top four tournaments. Her showing great potential early on in her career does not have to mean that her career graph is going to always keep moving upwards. Talent and hard work does not always fructify into a win, case in point, Andy Murray.
Having said that, we cannot forget the fact that Bouchard has been described as ‘hell’ to play against by her opponents. She has an aggressive game, a technique which might be the key reason to her thwarting her opponents at this rate. The unpredictability in her game might just be the reason why she might be the next Grand Slam winner of 2014. Williams’ might be her strongest competitor but if she continues to play the way she has so far, a Williams’ versus Bouchard match would be a very interesting match to watch.