Genie Army lands in Montreal to cheer on Eugenie Bouchard
Group of young Australians are in town to cheer on hometown tennis hero Bouchard at Rogers Cup
A group of diehard Eugenie Bouchard fans have travelled halfway around the world to cheer on Montreal’s hometown tennis hero as she fights for the Rogers Cup starting this weekend.
Filippe Ricciardi, Ryan Gibb and a handful of devotees travelled from Australia to attend the competition at Montreal’s Uniprix Stadium. They spoke to CBC's Daybreak host Mike Finnerty on Friday.
They’re excited to watch Bouchard compete on home turf after watching her trounce Australia’s Casey Dellacqua and Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic at the Australian Open last January.
“It was the first time she was on TV in Australia across the nation,” Gibb said.
The original idea for the Genie Army came last summer, when Ryan Gibb was inspired by Bouchard’s British Open performance.
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The army is now composed of about a dozen people, mostly men in their early 20s.
They arrived in Montreal in collaboration with Tennis Canada, visiting the Uniprix Stadium court before the tournament gets underway.
“At home there’s us 12 and about 15,000 Australians in the stadium,” Gibb said.
“It will be good to have 12,000 other Canadians behind Genie.”
Bouchard enters the Rogers Cup at number seven in the world rankings.
