Alex Eala to take on Belgian challenger in Homburg opener

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

A day after her semifinal qualification in Berlin, Alex Eala will head straight to Homburg to continue her Women’s Tennis Association campaign.

Despite a grueling WTA 500 tournament schedule, Eala is already battle-tested in the demanding tennis profession she entered and is ready to square off against Belgium’s Elise Mertens in the first round of the Bad Homburg Open in Germany today at 11:30 p.m. Philippine time.

The quick back-to-back trip is Eala’s final wave of preparation for the upcoming Wimbledon tournament, where she will etch her name in the history books as the first Filipina to earn a singles seeding at a Grand Slam tournament at No. 29.

Before redirecting her focus to the big stage, Eala will first begin her Homburg campaign against Mertens, who is coming off a quarterfinal finish in the doubles category in Berlin.

A former WTA world No. 1 doubles player, Mertens is widely known for her all-around skill set, especially at the net, which helped her win Grand Slam doubles titles.

Mertens has collected six Grand Slam women’s doubles trophies since 2019 but has yet to win her first singles Grand Slam.

Like Eala, Mertens possesses an efficient return game against big servers. To neutralize an opponent’s powerful service game, the Belgian ace’s bread and butter is a deep slice counter to set up her net attack.

On the other hand, Eala banks on her elite baseline hitting, especially on the forehand side, packed with an insane amount of topspin and power to establish her reset shots in the middle of the court.

While Eala is used to dictating the pace in baseline groundstroke slugfests, Mertens usually opts for a different route and dominates the net.

Eala is expected to come out aggressively in the shot exchanges, while Mertens slowly calculates her opponent’s tendencies and can switch from attacking the net to holding the baseline for defense.

Both netters had contrasting singles fates in Berlin, with Mertens immediately crashing out in the second round while Eala had a run for the ages after ousting world No. 2 Elena Rybakina and world No. 6 Elina Svitolina to reach the semifinals.

An exciting chess match, indeed.

Can Eala carry her momentum to Homburg and cruise past Mertens?