When John Goehrke hit send on a tweet, responding to Wimbledon queen Eugenie Bouchard, he might have thought nothing of it.
Bouchard was watching Super Bowl LI, in February 17, with the Atlanta Falcons seemingly cruising to a maiden Super Bowl win – beating the New England Patriots, who had been the dominant side of the era with Tom Brady at their helm.
The tennis star, along with a lot of the US fans, was convinced the Falcons had all but won the Vince Lombardi trophy: “I’m literally super bored, I tweeted, ‘I knew Atlanta would win’.” And that triggered a response from John.
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“I don’t even typically read my Twitter replies, and then this dude’s like, ‘Bet: If Patriots win, we go on a date?’ I replied, ‘Sure’, thinking the Falcon’s lead was solid at 28-3 by the third’s end.”
However, what Bouchard hadn’t banked on was Brady pulling off a magical comeback. Inspired by the future hall-of-famer, the Patriots overturned the largest deficit in Super Bowl history to get their hands on the Vince Lombardi trophy.
“And next thing you know,” Bouchard continued. “My tweet’s gone viral!”
Speaking about the moment, John admitted he thought there was no chance she would reply, before adding: “I was in shock and immediately texted all my closest friends about what was happening!”
And as John was texting his pals, Bouchard was already doing her homework: “We had to firstly research who this was because by the way, his profile picture was Tiger Woods and I was like, ‘This is honestly not Tiger Woods, which means it’s a super fan, which means this is dangerous’.”
She would soon discover John was a marketing student – and the date was on.
“I don’t really have one favourite thing. I like that she’s young [close to my age],competitive, and beautiful,” he said ahead of the date.
And the budding couple watched a Brooklyn Nets game where Bouchard confessed that John turned out to be a “good-looking guy”.
The following week, Bouchard shared a snap of the pair relaxing at home together with the caption: “Look who came to visit me.” The pair were snapped together again just a week later, this time relaxing together on the beach.
However, their romance never really blossomed – but the whole saga was reported to be the subject of a new Disney movie with plans in the works for its release.
While the whole saga was just harmless fun, Bouchard did open up on the downsides it brought about in their respective love lives in 2020.
“That infamous moment in my life when I tweeted when I shouldn’t have just turned into this whole thing,” Bouchard said. “I’m in touch with him casually. Sometimes he plays hard to get and I’m like, ‘Bro, we’re friends, text me back, it’s OK’.
“We’ve hung out a bunch of times. I think he has a girlfriend now though, maybe that’s why he doesn’t text me back.
“All his girlfriends literally hate me. We’ve talked about it so much. Every girl that he ever hangs out with is like, ‘Why would you want to hang out with me when you hung out with Genie?’ I’m ruining his dating life. It’s so sad. We hang out once a year. I’m not a threat, relax.”
She added: “It caused problems at the time I had a boyfriend, it caused problems as well. Honestly, we were a disaster for each other’s dating lives, it was so bad.
“People see articles and you get jealous and you wonder, ‘Oh my god, is that real? Is it not? Is it still thing? Is it not?’
“I could see how girls would be jealous, and guys in my life as well. It was tough. We were problematic for each other.”
This summer, Bouchard is back in SW19, after finishing as runner-up in 2014, as part of the BBC’s team. It wasn’t all too long ago that she walked away from the sport after admitting her career and life were consumed by chaos.
After forays into modelling, including starring on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Now the social media sensation, who has two million followers on Instagram, has been making waves on the Beeb.
She was dubbed as the “Queen of Wimbledon” thanks to her glam looks. One social media user replied: “Oh my Gosh, really stunning, perfect.”
A second wrote: “Queen of Wimbledon.” A third responded: “You are breathtaking!!” A fourth fan said: “Beautiful as always.”