Tour is no place for making friends, says Bouchard
By Julien Pretot PARIS (Reuters) - French open quarter-finalist Eugenie Bouchard is in the market for collecting tennis titles, not friends. The 20-year-old Canadian underlined her burgeoning reputation on Sunday with a clinical 6-1 6-2 thrashing of Germany's Angelique Kerber to reach the last eight of a second successive grand slam event. She reached the semis in Australia and having only dropped one set here so far as she extends her winning streak on clay to nine matches she will be confident of emulating that feat. Asked who her best friend on the tour was, she quipped: "Best friend on tour, I don't have one. I don't think the tennis tour is the place to have friends. "For me it's all competition. And, you know, I think it's important to just remember that we're going to play against each other in matches. "It's not like we're team mates. To me, it's kind of more competitive." Being single-minded is a key quality for a tennis player and Bouchard, who won her first WTA title in Nuremberg last week, already seems to have it, refusing to get distracted by other matches or the delights of the French capital. Asked whether she was keeping track on the progress of fellow Canadian Milos Raonic in the men's singles she said: "If I ask about him? No." While other players have taken to sightseeing - former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova took a walk on the Champs Elysees - Bouchard is purely focusing on her next match. "I want to rest and kind of just chill. We're in a grand slam, so I want to save my energy for the matches," she said. "I have been in Paris many times and I have gone sightseeing a lot. So I'm not in a rush to go sightseeing." Even eating seems to be a chore. "Every night we have struggled to find good restaurants. I put pressure on my mum and coach to find a good one, because my tolerance for walking is about 10 feet," she said. "So besides that, we have to take a cab and I still don't want it to be that far. I'm pretty picky," she added. (Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Martyn Herman)
