'There's so much negativity out there': Tennis ace Eugenie Bouchard discusses romance and 'haters' on promising $4,000 first date

Tennis star Eugenie Bouchard, who was inundated with offers after revealing that quarantine would be "a lot more fun with a boyfriend", is eyeing a second date after a successful virtual attempt with comedian and fan Bob Menery.

Bouchard called her fans "crazy" after Menery won an auction with a staggering $4,000 final bid for an online "date" with the 26-year-old Canadian, who opened up on her love life and revealed her struggle with internet trolls during the dinner.

Joker Menery presented Bouchard with flowers from his studio on an evening he had promised would be "the best first date you have ever been on", interspersing clips of the meeting with sections of the song "It Must Be Love" by Madness.

Bouchard told Menery, who has more than 2.6 million followers on Instagram, that her worst ever date had been with a suitor who kept throwing up "every 20 minutes" because of food poisoning.

"It was just a disaster, it was so bad," she recalled.

"We tried to chill out on the beach and have fun but he would keep disappearing, behind bushes, to the bathroom in the clubhouse.

"We were supposed to go to dinner after but I was hoping, I was like, ‘I really don’t want to go to dinner anymore because this is awful’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, what if we skip dinner?’

"I was like, ‘that’s great, can you just drop me off at home – goodbye’."

Sports obsessive Menery has interviewed the likes of UFC President Dana White on his Zapped podcast.

After Bouchard posed in front of the mirror in a leopard print onesie and claimed that it was a reflection of her usual look while trawling for partners on dating site Bumble, Menery replied: "Is that the outfit for our date tomorrow?

"I’m wearing a full blown tuxedo. I’m a 900-1 underdog for securing a second date.

Despite being mocked by fans for his own dating history and accused of desperation, he appears to have impressed Bouchard, with the former Wimbledon finalist promising that she would "subscribe to find out" how his recording of their chat had turned out.

"You have to play it cool," she later told CNN.

"Maybe I'll say I'm busy and give it say another week, even though we have nothing to do.

"I agreed to a live date so when things are possible and somehow our schedules overlap, we will go on a second date...a first real date. We'll see where that goes."

Although many fans praised her generosity for holding the auction in aid of charities dedicated to easing the COVID-19 pandemic, Bouchard admitted that her frequent social media posts inevitably lead to "tough" criticism from the public.

"I realize that everybody has haters," she accepted.

"It means you stood up for something in your life, it means you've done something in your life.

"It's only natural for someone my age to be active on social media. Why it is such a big deal?

"I think the most important thing is to not hate back, to accept it for what it is and understand that it's more of a reflection of them and how they're feeling and not that you're a horrible person. It's hard because there's so much negativity out there."