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’s 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.
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’s tournament director said in a press conference that there has been an unprecedented demand for tickets. “Over the last month the ticketing team says at least 80%, if not more, of the requests in this tournament are about “when is Alex Eala playing?” he said.
Among her horde of admirers is the legendary Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, still the nation’s most famous sporting star. “She’s becoming a national hero. Everyone is starting to stop what they’re doing and tune in to watch her matches. I don’t miss any of her games,” he said.
The once empty courts in Manila are filled with aspiring tennis players. “Everyone comes up to me whenever I go back to Manila saying it’s so hard to get courts … that’s 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,” she said. She says she was surprised by the watch parties back home. “I have never seen so many people watching tennis in the Philippines,” she said.
But it’s the sport she had grown up watching all throughout her life, thanks to her tennis crazy grandfather, Bob. “He 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,” she said during Wimbledon. She started playing with him just “to bond with him.” Gradually, it became an obsession for both—Eala to win more games and Bob to groom her. “I 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…” she said. He taught tennis to her brother as well, so that she always had a sparring partner. “He (brother) is a good player, and beats me even now,” she told Clay magazine.
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. “Every 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,” she said in a media interaction during Wimbledon.
Praises have flown from former tennis stars and pundits. Former British number one Greg Rusedski has hailed Eala as “the most exciting player on the WTA Tour”. “She is fearless, she takes the ball early, she is a lefty,” he said on his podcast Off Court With Greg Rusedski. “Her mentality is so good and so strong,” he recently said.
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“The 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’s definitely in the mix [for a major] because the rest of her game is there,” he added.
Former US Open champion and former World No. 1 Andy Roddick lauded her courage. “She is just not scared to go against the top players,” he said. “For 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.” And she is making a country apathetic to tennis fall in love with it.
