Justin Bieber is one of the few global icons who could turn an up-and-coming tennis player's quarterfinal victory at a Grand Slam event into an afterthought.
Canadian Eugenie Bouchard reached the semifinals of the Australian Open with a 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 victory over Ana Ivanovic on Monday, just two days after Ivanovic conquered world's No. 1 Serena Williams to end Williams' 25-match winning streak.
The 19-year-old Bouchard was taking part in a post-match, on-court interview when she got blindsided with a non-tennis question, according to USA TODAY Sports' For the Win.
"You're getting a lot of fans here, a lot of them are male," the interviewer began. "And they want to know if you could date anyone in the world, of sport, of movies - I'm sorry, they asked me to say this - who would you date?"
Um, ... Justin Bieber?" Bouchard responded as the crowd laughed and gave her some good-natured boos.
No word from the Bieber camp whether he was interested.
A lot of spectators, however, were interested in how the reporter came up with such a question after the biggest win in Bouchard's professional career.
Twitter blew up with questions about the line of questioning.
From Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu 2h): "On court interviewer had the whole match to reconsider asking Bouchard a dating question after the biggest win of her life. Stuck with it."
From Andrew McLaren (@drewwpg 2h): "Eugenie Bouchard has a mature, solid game. That post match question was idiotic and sexist."
And from John Rodenburg (@TSNJR 2h): "Without a shadow of a doubt if a guy asked Bouchard that dating question, he'd be getting killed right now. Or fired. Or both"
The question, however, may have resulted in Bouchard getting a lot more fans for the semifinals match, if only to see what the on-court reporter will ask her after that match if she wins it.
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