Alex Eala gets coaching offer from former British No 1 as he makes rankings prediction
Alex Eala and Victoria Mboko have emerged as the risings stars of women’s tennis over the past 12 months and now the duo have been handed some lavish predictions by a former Grand Slam finalist.
Eala has built up a huge global fanbase since she announced her arrival at the top of the game with a run to the semi-finals of the WTA 1000 event in Miami last March, with her run in that tournament including a win against Iga Swiatek.
Mboko went one better when she enjoyed a breakthrough win by winning the WTA 1000 tournament in front of her home fans in Canada last August.
Now Greg Rusedski has predicted Eala and Mboko will sustain their rise up the rankings, but the 1997 US Open runner-up insisted patience will be needed to give these 20-year-old Eala and 19-year-old Mboko time to mature.
Speaking on the latest edition of his Off Court Cuts podcast, Rusedski made some big predictions for two of the most talked-about players in women’s tennis.
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He started with Eala and while the Filipina is set to break into the top 30 of the WTA Rankings after she pieced together some fine wins in the Indian Wells tournament over the last few days, Rusedski believes there is a lot more to come.
Rusedski had one of the best serves in tennis in the late 1990s and early 2000s and he suggested he would relish the chance to work on Eala’s serve in a bid to take her to the next level.
“With Eala, I see so much room for potential,” said Rusedski. “She’s a player I’d love to work with on her serve. I just feel like she can get more benefit out of it, more accuracy, more power.
“I think she’s gonna possibly crack the top 10 this year. That’s how good she is mentally tactically.
“She got a little bit wrong with some of her shot selection [in the 6-0, 6-2 loss to world No 14 Linda Noskova] and she wasn’t really getting much off the serve. So that’s the positive, there’s a lot of upside with her. Lots to improve.”
Canadian-born Rusedski is also a big fan of Mboko, who impressed with a run to the Indian Wells quarter-finals before he came up short against world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka.
“Mboko is my pick to win a major in 2027,” declared Rusedski. “Mboko has a great team around her and she is showing she can compete with the best.
“She has the physicality and I loved the way she shows that composure to win the title in front of her home fans in Canada last year.
“So I think the future is very bright for both her and Eala. It’s so good to see the youngsters doing well, but right now it looks the dominance of Sabalanka, Rybakina, Swiatek and Svitolina will continue, but the youngsters are coming.”
Mboko pressed Sabalenka all the way in a tight first set before losing 7-6(0), 6-4 and she took some confidence from her display.
“I had a lot of chances in the first set,” said Mboko after the Sabalenka match. “It’s unfortunate that I was unable to kind of take them as much as I could, but she was playing really well, especially on pressure points. I gotta give credit to her there.
“I feel like sometimes I was maybe one or two points away from kind of maybe changing how the first set would have gone and changing the momentum.”
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