"I was quite shocked," says Bouchard, the 20-year-old renowned for her cool on-court composure. "I didn't sleep a lot the night before and I was on a flight for six hours and I was like, 'Oh my God, I look so bad, and there's like 500 people here with signs waiting for me, and every TV station and everything'."

She remained house-bound for the next three days. "I didn't want to leave, but then I got used to it," recalls Bouchard. "I love it when people approach me and ask for pictures, and that's totally great and fine and they say nice things, and I'm always happy to hear it. But it's totally a different world when I go back to where I'm from, Montreal, and at all the other tournaments now, too. It's definitely bigger hype and things like that."

Her response, says the super-marketable, fiercely driven emerging star of women's tennis is to dress more carefully when she goes out, wearing her comfortable but "slobby" tracksuit pants a little less often. "There's definitely a lot more expectations and pressure and a lot more eyes on you," she says. "I don't know if it's something you ever get used to, but it's just something that you know is there, and have to deal with, and I think I've handled it pretty well."

If her post-Wimbledon results would suggest otherwise, with a 9-10 win-loss record and four consecutive defeats to close a year that finished with the departure of her long-time coach Nick Saviano, then Saviano insists Bouchard's difficulties were far more physical than emotional. There were multiple leg injuries, including a lingering right knee problem, before a late withdrawal from the IPTL after a training mishap, and one controversial no-show in Hong Kong, citing fatigue.

"The real candid truth is she has been hurt much of the time since Wimbledon," said Saviano, admitting Bouchard had played her hometown event in Montreal because she wanted to, but before she was ready. She was greeted with a standing ovation from 11,000 adoring fans, but produced a shock 0-6, 6-2, 0-6 loss to 113th-ranked qualifier Shelby Rogers. Back then, Bouchard also conceded she was "feeling the pressure a little bit". Fame, she told Fairfax Media more recently, is "a part of the job and, you know, life could be a lot worse".

Melbourne Park hosted the coming-out party for the former junior Wimbledon champion a year ago, Bouchard having already slashed her ranking from 144th to 32nd in 2013. A semi-final showing on debut launched a season of milestones, which included her maiden first WTA title (in Nurnberg), all manner of history-making Canadian firsts, a debut appearance among the top 10 after Wimbledon, and a peak of No. 5.

Despite just one title and a 4-12 record against the other members of the top eight at the year-end WTA Finals, three excellent grand slam results ensured that Best Newcomer status was upgraded to the WTA's Most Improved award in 2014, although as many are now wondering whether a major next step is imminent, others are predicting a common dose of the second-year blues. The coach's shingle is still vacant, incidentally, as Bouchard works for now with experienced hitting partner Diego Ayala, and considers a more permanent appointment.

Meanwhile, her profile has soared, not least through a cover story in the New York Times Magazine, and the enthusiastic - sometimes provocative - use of social media that included a tweet of her table-top dance with billionaire Richard Branson on Necker Island. The next face of the game was the subject of heavy courting by a slew of management companies late in the year, before she eventually signed with the William Morris Agency. Nike and Coca Cola are numbered among her lucrative sponsorship/endorsement deals, but just don't call her the next Maria Sharapova. "I don't want to be the next someone else," Bouchard has said. "I want to be the first of me."

It was, however, a strange quirk of her season that one of the most consistent players at the majors - she built a 19-4 record, while reaching at least the semi-final stage of the first three - lost nine tournament first rounds. One of those was in Sydney, Bouchard noting that some of her best results followed on from her worst often enough to indicate that she has learnt to channel her emotions in a positive, motivated-to-do-better kind of way.

Certainly, she is not easily satisfied, fielding a query at the US Open about her Canadian tennis influences by saying there actually were none, given that she looked up only to the best, such as Steffi Graf, Monica Seles and Sharapova. Bouchard, described by Chris Evert, admiringly, as "tough as nails", also routinely answers questions about whether she was surprised to have got so far at the Australian Open and then Wimbledon with replies that she has never expected to be anywhere else.

Still, the world No. 7 admits that broader perceptions of her may have changed during her great run at Melbourne Park, which was ended by eventual champion Li Na, inspired the self-styled "Genie Army" of soft-toy-tossing admirers, drew impressed tweets from the likes of NBA star Dirk Nowitzki, and briefly challenged ice hockey for prominence back in chilly Canada.

"I think when someone has a good run, people start paying more attention, and the whole Genie Army thing got just bigger and louder and more intense, and even Justin Bieber noticed me, so that was an improvement," quips the avowed Belieber, seeded this year for a quarter-final against No. 2 Maria Sharapova.

Bouchard ate dinner at the same city steakhouse before each match, and, having trained so often in Florida, also finds the Melbourne match conditions to her taste. "The hardcourt's a little bit bouncy, which I like, so the courts suit my game. And hot weather is something everyone talks about in Australia, but I train in Florida and I always try to prepare myself well that way for Australia. I can deal with the heat. I love it."

That was most apparent last January, and Bouchard starts to say that she thinks the 2014 Australian Open "really kind of showed everyone ..." then stops, clarifying that the only person she cares about convincing is herself. "It more showed myself I can play big matches on big courts. I was on Rod Laver and made it to the semis - it was definitely kind of a breakthrough moment for me and gave me confidence that I built on for the rest of the year.

"But I'm always a perfectionist, I'm always striving to do better, and I'm never satisfied," says a player so single-minded that she has declared the tennis tour a place for competition, not friendship. "To me, I won a tournament, I didn't win a grand slam, and that's my ultimate goal, so I'm going to keep trying every year to get it until I do."