A 21-year-old tennis player with a bright smile and an array of rasping groundstrokes, is making a country fall in love with a sport it had barely bothered about. The racquet sport had seldom struck a chord in Philippines, its allegiances split between basketball and boxing, but after Alexandra Eala\u2019s exploits, becoming the first from her country to win a WTA title, when the 20th-ranked triumphed at the Mubadala DC Open in Washington DC after she had reached the round of 16 in Wimbledon last June, tennis has become a sudden rage in her country. <\/p>\n
Thousands welcomed her when she returned home, the president Ferdinand Marcos hosted a reception in her honour at Malacanang Palace in Manila. Hundreds swarm her for autographs and selfies, where once she used to pass off anonymously. The stands are packed with her supporters, thanks to the sizable Filipino immigrant community around the world. The Washington event\u2019s tournament director said in a press conference that there has been an unprecedented demand for tickets. \u201cOver the last month the ticketing team says at least 80%, if not more, of the requests in this tournament are about \u201cwhen is Alex Eala playing?\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
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Among her horde of admirers is the legendary Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, still the nation\u2019s most famous sporting star. \u201cShe\u2019s becoming a national hero. Everyone is starting to stop what they\u2019re doing and tune in to watch her matches. I don\u2019t miss any of her games,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The once empty courts in Manila are filled with aspiring tennis players. \u201cEveryone comes up to me whenever I go back to Manila saying it\u2019s so hard to get courts \u2026 that\u2019s a good thing because when I was younger the courts were empty, nobody was playing. And there were kind of one or two courts in the city,\u201d she said. She says she was surprised by the watch parties back home. \u201cI have never seen so many people watching tennis in the Philippines,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the sport she had grown up watching all throughout her life, thanks to her tennis crazy grandfather, Bob. \u201cHe was more of a club player, not really a coach. He would just go to the club and play a bit, and teach the basics to some of our family members,\u201d she said during Wimbledon. She started playing with him just \u201cto bond with him.\u201d Gradually, it became an obsession for both\u2014Eala to win more games and Bob to groom her. \u201cI went to train with my brother and my grandfather everyday after school with my ruffled socks and my light up shoes and my chubby cheeks\u2026\u201d she said. He taught tennis to her brother as well, so that she always had a sparring partner. \u201cHe (brother) is a good player, and beats me even now,\u201d she told Clay magazine. <\/p>\n
Sweeping titles in local tournaments became a routine, but the big breakthrough came when she won a scholarship to train at the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy in Manacor in 2018. Five years later, she turned professional and seven years on, one of the most exciting tennis talents in the world. But her grandfather barely grew her career soar, as he passed away soon after she became a professional. But every time she wins a match, his memories fill her heart. \u201cEvery time I do something important, I think of him. He worked so hard and sacrificed so much for me.I think he, together with my parents, contributed greatly to my behaviour on court, my mindset and my mental strength,\u201d she said in a media interaction during Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Praises have flown from former tennis stars and pundits. Former British number one Greg Rusedski has hailed Eala as \u201cthe most exciting player on the WTA Tour\u201d. \u201cShe is fearless, she takes the ball early, she is a lefty,\u201d he said on his podcast Off Court With Greg Rusedski. \u201cHer mentality is so good and so strong,\u201d he recently said. <\/p>\n
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\u201cThe one area she needs in her game to win a major is to get that serve a bit better and more powerful. Maybe next year if she can get that improvement on the serve then she\u2019s definitely in the mix [for a major] because the rest of her game is there,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Former US Open champion and former World No. 1 Andy Roddick lauded her courage. \u201cShe is just not scared to go against the top players,\u201d he said. \u201cFor some reason what she does with switching directions and accepting pace and pinning people in corners, she is a name nobody wants to see early in a draw as a top player.\u201d And she is making a country apathetic to tennis fall in love with it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 21-year-old tennis player with a bright smile and an array of rasping groundstrokes, is making a country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[829,2662,7246,8463,17611,17610,28,285,11598,2962],"class_list":["post-47471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wimbledon","tag-alexandra-eala","tag-manny-pacquiao","tag-mubadala-dc-open","tag-philippines","tag-rafael-nadal-academy","tag-sports-hero","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon","tag-wta-title","tag-young-talent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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