Australian Open 2015: Sharapova and Bouchard set for epic clash

WHEN Maria Sharapova and Eugenie Bouchard meet in their Australian Open quarter-final clash, there may be more than a tennis match at stake.

Maria Sharapova is a five-time grand slam champion.

AS Andre Agassi famously declared a couple of decades ago, image is everything. Maria Sharapova and Eugenie Bouchard, who meet in the quarter-finals of the women’s singles tomorrow, may understand that better than most. The pair head an alternate rankings list based on their lucrative collections of endorsement contracts.

Sharapova, the present queen, recognises Bouchard as the biggest threat to her continued dominance in this respect. Should the Canadian, who at 20 is seven years younger than Sharapova, start winning their duels on the court at grand-slam events, it is sure to have an effect on their relative marketing values off the court.

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Sharapova is estimated to have been worth $190 million in 2014, but according to People with Money, the Ottawa-based magazine, Bouchard is catching up fast, with a net worth of $120m.

Bouchard has boosted her worth with stock investments and substantial property holdings, as well as lucrative endorsement deals. Her prize money from tennis represents a small part of her financial portfolio.

By virtue of their age gap and because Sharapova has won 34 titles compared with Bouchard’s one, the Russian’s career earnings stand at $245million. The dollars $250,000 the winner of the fourth meeting between the pair will receive may seem almost trivial by comparison, but both players appreciate the true value of progressing.

Sharapova has won all three of their meetings, but there was a touch of coldness when she spoke of Bouchard after her 6-3, 6-0 win over Peng Shuai, of China, in the fourth round. “I don’t know Genie very well,” she said. “As a tennis player, she’s a big competitor.”

The natural inclination is to see Bouchard as Sharapova’s ultimate successor, but there was an aversion to that theory, too. “I was compared to Kournikova for many years in my career, and still occasionally the name comes up in interviews and articles,” Sharapova said. “That’s just part of the game, part of the business. It’s understandable.

“I was still a teenager when I said, ‘I don’t want to be the next anyone. I want to be the first Maria Sharapova.’ We all want to create our own path and go through our own career. We work extremely hard at a sport and that’s what we want to be known for.”

When Bouchard first encountered Sharapova in Miami just less than two years ago, she was comprehensively beaten 6-2, 6-0. Their most recent meeting, at the French Open last year, was a much closer affair, which Sharapova won 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.

There is growing optimism about Bouchard’s chances after beating Irina-Camelia Begu, of Romania, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2.

“It’s always great to play the best players,” she said. “We had a good match last year, which was close and a tough battle. But I’ve progressed a lot since then.”