Former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard has reacted to reports that Bill Belichick, the former New England Patriots head coach, is living life to the full. The 72-year-old, six-time Super Bowl winner, is enjoying a new lease of life after taking up a college football coaching role and stepping out with his 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson.
Hudson is a former Bridgewater State University cheerleader. She’s also a cosmetology graduate of the New England Hair Academy. She and Belichick, who is 48 years senior, met in 2023 after the former NFL coach split from his girlfriend Linda Holliday, and they have been a public couple since.
Bouchard responded to a comment from an X user after Hudson posted an endearing image of Belichick hoisting her into the air, cheerleader-style. The user noted,
“Belichick is living like he was given a year to live.”
Genie Bouchard immediately replied, posting:
“We should all live like that!”
Eugenie Bouchard and Bill Belichick’s career paths are comparable. Belichick has effectively retired from the pressures of top-level NFL coaching, and Bouchard, who has allowed her tennis ranking to slip into the 1000s, has taken up professional pickleball.
Eugenie Bouchard is dividing her time between professional tennis and professional pickleball
Eugenie Bouchard last competed on the WTA circuit at the 2024 Canadian Open qualifiers, where she lost to Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima. The Canadian remains registered with the WTA as a professional player but shows no sign of returning to the WTA tour anytime soon.
Bouchard joined the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) in 2024. Her team, the New Jersey 5s, traded her to the Phoenix Flames earlier this year. The trade brought Bouchard together with a former tennis pro and three-time Major doubles champion Jack Sock. The trade effectively meant that Bouchard’s summer would be concentrated on pickleball rather than tennis.
Last year, Bouchard told the New York Post that, like Belichick, she was undergoing a career change. However, she still wanted to keep her tennis career alive:
āIām going to put tennis tournaments in where I can fit them in my schedule. Tennis is what I love and what I still want to keep doing. The pickleball schedule is the priority but I do want to insert those tennis tournaments. I want to achieve whatever I can. Iām not doing a full-time tennis schedule, so of course I need to understand that there will be limitations.”
Eugenie Bouchard is a former Wimbledon finalist and title-winner on the WTA tour. She and Belichick have earned the right to their new lives, given their successes in tennis and football, respectively.