Genie Bouchard has already gone Rio to Cincinnati, and awaits a qualifying wild card

RIO DE JANEIRO – When we last saw Genie Bouchard (on social media, anyway), she had crawled to the end of the 10-metre diving board under the watchful eye of namesake Max Bouchard (no relation) and posed for a pic.

Flash forward a little more than 24 hours ... and Bouchard has gone from a glamorous South American metropolis caught up in Olympic fever to ... Mason, Ohio, where the most feverish thing you can find is the early-bird lineup at the local Applebee's restaurant franchise.

The Canadian intends to do something there that she hasn't done in more than 2 1/2 years – play the qualifying of a WTA Tour event.

The reduced 48-player field for the Western & Southern Open, made necessary because of the Olympic event, meant that Bouchard's ranking of No. 48 at the entry deadline left her some eight spots out of the main draw as of Thursday.

She didn't enter the qualifying, though, and so has to depend on the tournament to give her wild card so she can play it. The qualifying wild cards will be announced Friday morning and barring something unexpected, we're told the Canadian will get one.

The last time Bouchard played qualifying was all the way back to February, 2014. She hadn't planned to play Dubai because at the time, her ranking wasn't high enough to get her into the main draw. She had flown overnight after a Fed Cup tie in Montreal to the smaller event in Doha, only to lose in the first round to American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and then decided to play the qualifying in Dubai, the bigger of the two. As the No. 1 seed, she lost in the third and final round to Annika Beck of Germany.

Before that, her last qualifying appearance was nearly three years ago in Beijing, China.

In her first appearance in Cincinnati in 2013, Bouchard qualified and lost in the second round to Serena Williams – but not before taking the first set. Williams, eliminated shockingly early at the Olympics in both singles and doubles, was awarded a wild card into the Cincinnati main draw Thursday.

With the US Open coming up in a few weeks, skipping the qualifying was almost not an option for Bouchard, who didn't enter the final warmup event in New Haven, Conn. the follow week (the last week before the US Open). She would have come into the final Grand Slam of the season with very little match play on the American hard courts, which are significantly quicker – eons quicker – than the slow courts at the Olympics.

Coach Nick Saviano, who wasn't in Rio, is expected to be in Cincinnati.  Bouchard will hit the courts Friday and would play her first-round qualifying match on Saturday. It's a quick turnaround, one many of the Olympic tennis players will struggle to make.