Eugenie Bouchard to begin arduous fight back to stardom

— -- The fascination of Eugenie Bouchard goes way beyond legal circles.

But this upcoming season, with a lawsuit pending against the USTA after a locker room fall that knocked her out of the final major of 2015, the focus will be squarely on the Canadian as she seeks to regain her poise and confidence.

The timing of the incident couldn't have been worse. Bouchard had finally begun to recapture some of the form she had in 2014, when she reached the final at Wimbledon. Many players experience some difficulties after a breakthrough Slam final, but few have had such a disturbing time as she did after that auspicious run.

At her peak, Bouchard was ranked No. 5 in the world, but by the end of 2015, she was close to falling out of the top 50. And with a great deal of ranking points to defend from her run to the quarterfinals of last year's Australian Open, an early defeat at Melbourne Park this month could see her drop even lower.

It would hardly be a surprise if she were to lose in the first week of the opening Grand Slam of the year, given that she hasn't completed a match in four months. Bouchard's last full match was a third-round victory over Dominika Cibulkova in New York. Bouchard's only other appearance on a tennis court came in Beijing this past October, where she retired against Andrea Petkovic, citing dizziness.

Bouchard has made numerous coaching changes, which seem to have only hurt her on-court productivity. She cut ties with Nick Saviano late in 2014 and hired Sam Sumyk. The arrangement with Sumyk ended last summer, where she hired Jimmy Connors on a part-time basis. Now Bouchard is working with Thomas Hogstedt, who has previously coached Maria Sharapova, among others. The hope will be that Hogstedt can restore some direction and stability to Bouchard's career.

With all of Bouchard's distractions, it's hard to envision her making any significant progress early, but if she gets on a roll in Australia, perhaps we will see at least a semblance of the player we once thought would carry the mantle on the WTA Tour.  

Others WTA players with something to prove in 2016

Victoria Azarenka

The past couple of seasons, Azarenka has finished outside the top 20, with the former world No.1 dragged down by injuries. A winner of two Australian Open titles, she has struggled to remember a time when she didn't have a problem with her foot. Azarenka desperately wants to show she is physically capable of playing her best tennis. As she wrote in a column for Sports Illustrated: "I know this is not a very positive approach, but it's my mind, and I am constantly fighting with myself. I take a deep breath, I pray and I write a few things down on paper that I want to focus on. And I try all over again the next day, step by step, and one thing at a time."

Maria Sharapova

It might not be fair, but we can't help but bring up Sharapova's head-to-head record against Serena Williams. The Russian has lost her past 17 matches against Williams. Sharapova's last victory in this head-to-head matchup? You guessed it: 2004. Where better for Sharapova to end that streak than at the Rio Olympics? That would go some way to making up for their most lopsided encounters, when Williams dropped just a game in pulverizing Sharapova in the gold-medal match at the 2012 London Games.

While that might be Sharapova's long-term goal this season, she first needs to get healthy. Currently, she is suffering from a left forearm injury, which knocked her out of the Brisbane International on Tuesday. 

Agnieszka Radwanska

Can Radwanska parlay her year-end championship in Singapore, the greatest triumph of her career, into an eventual Grand Slam championship? The 2012 Wimbledon runner-up, she hasn't played in a major final since. As she told CNN: "I will do everything in my power to win a Grand Slam in 2016."

Simona Halep

There is clearly no shame in finishing a season ranked behind only Williams. Or making the semifinals of the US Open, as Halep also did last year. But Halep, for all her class, will want to perform much more consistently in the Grand Slams in 2016. Halep did reach the final four of the US Open and the quarters of the Australian, but she also lost in the second round of the French Open and the first round of Wimbledon. That defeat in Paris was particularly upsetting for Halep, who in 2014 had appeared in her first Grand Slam final, where she finished runner-up to Sharapova. Halep has a new coach, ESPN analyst Darren Cahill, who has previously worked with Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt.