Alex Eala Falls Short Against Wimbledon’s Defending Champ

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

So near, and yet so far.

In a steaming hot atmosphere in the first round of the Wimbledon Grand Slam event, Filipina tennis ace Alex Eala came so close to handing Barbora Krejcikova, the defending champion, a stunning upset defeat when she secured the first set and moved another win away from advancing to the next round.

However, the Czech champion showed poise under pressure and didn’t panic in the last two sets to cap off the first-round win with a reverse sweep- 3.6, 6.2, 6.1- on July 1, 2025, in London.

Eala was off to a waxing hot start after catching the reigning Wimbledon queen off guard with her powerful on-the-rise forehand bombs.

Locked-in with the approach of killing the first ball in her returns, Eala’s offensive mentality paid off dividends as she left no crumbs, sending a barrage of ground stroke winners that Krejcikova had no answers to.

Krejcikova played mind games and forced Eala to generate most of her shots from the backhand side, which also didn’t prove to be a smart adjustment as the 20-year-old Filipina tallied a total of seven backhand winners in the first set alone, en route to an insane 39 total points won heading to the second set.

Eala also capitalized on Krejcikova’s slow start, committing five double faults while piling up her unforced error counter to 19 in just the first frame.

Frustrated after trailing early, Krejcikova shifted her approach at the start of the second and didn’t force a lot of issues by reacting to whatever Eala is throwing at her.

That decision steered the defending champion to a better shot selection, and later on amped up the pressure when she turned into the aggressor in the baseline exchanges.

Krejcikova stole the momentum of the match when she broke the first two service possessions of Eala, resulting to a comfortable 5-0 advantage.

Eala managed to hold her service in the sixth game set, but Krejcikova officially returned to the match by leveling the set scores at 1-1.

After that sequence, Krejcikova went back to her old ways and smelled blood when Eala experienced fatigue. The Filipina’s wide angled down-the-line bombs weren’t there anymore, and she kept on collecting errors in her first return hits that rewarded the champion with several freebie points.

Despite a tough challenge from Eala, Krejcikova still pulled off the win and ended the match with a backhand winner to march to the next round of the Wimbledon tournament.

“I mean, I would like to start with giving the credit to Alex. I mean, what the hell she played in the first set. She was smashing the ball and she was cleaning the lines and all that, so, wow,” Krejcikova said of Eala during her post-match interview.