Filipina Alex Eala stuns tennis world, nabs ITF World title

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

 

The beginning of a new era. It’s Alex Eala’s time.

After a stellar 2020 run in her professional tennis career, 15-year-old Filipina tennis prodigy Alex Eala is trying to create her own name in the women’s division after copping the ITF Women’s World Tour championship over a more-experienced veteran foe in Yvonne Cavalle-Reimers, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2.

The current world no. 2 juniors’ singles player in the girls’ category is slowly immersing herself in the older leagues and is nothing but impressive.

Defeating top-tier netters such as Adithya Karunaratne, Carole Monnet, and Seone Mendrez, Eala took on the much-older Reimers and accepted the challenge.

Despite falling in the first place after letting go of her important service game, Eala bounced back uncannily with the people expecting the veteran to take over the younger Filipina ace.

In the next two sets, Eala looked like a different beast and just took the soul out of her Spanish opponent who was 13 years older than her.

Eala’s booming forehands whooped Cavalle-Reimer most of the time and did not recover after dropping consecutive services.

Also, Eala’s consistency and perseverance in chasing long balls paid-off who just matched the Spaniard’s energy in her dominating last two sets.