Alex Eala has ‘worst serve in top 50’ – But still proving she belongs among tennis elite
Alex Eala has been told it is all the more remarkable that she is not far off being seeded at Grand Slams despite having “one of the biggest weaknesses in the top 50”.
That is according to tennis content creator and commentator Gill Gross, who exclusively told Tennis365 what he admires about the 21-year-old’s game.
Eala made her WTA Tour breakthrough last year during a remarkable run to the Miami Open semi-finals, where she beat Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek along the way.
The Filipino fell in the fourth round of that very tournament this year but still finds herself at 35th in the rankings, highlighting how that run was not a fluke.
As she tries to secure her second grass court even this season, after winning in Birmingham earlier this month, Gross has waxed lyrical about the rising star.
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He said, “She has a ferocious fighting spirit. She’s got an excellent forehand. She beats a lot of other women from the baseline, and she breaks serve a ton.
“I think when I’m looking at Eala, the main thing that stands out to me right now is that I think she has the worst serve in the top 50, yet she is sustaining herself in the top 40.
“She’s sustaining herself comfortably inside the top 50, and that’s even without the Cinderella run in Miami last year that a lot of people thought might be a one-off. She’s proven over the course of the next 52 weeks thereafter that she is a top 50 player, yet she has one of the biggest weaknesses in the top 50.
“I see that as a positive because if she can just make some gains on her serve insofar that she gets it to just average or even slightly below average, that’s going to be an opportunity for her to get even better.
“The fact that she’s breaking serve as much as she does shows she’s beating practically everybody in neutral rallies. The problem is she’s having to play so much defence and she’s having to work so hard because she doesn’t get anything out of her serve at this stage.”
Indeed, according to the WTA’s website, on the serving leaderboard – which looks at aces, double faults, first serve percentage, serve points won, and more – Eala is down in 95th.
For return games won, she is still down at 79th (35.5%) and for second serve return points won (56.3%), Eala is 67th. For return games won, the youngster is at 44.2% – which is still well outside the top 50.
So as Gross alludes to, Eala’s ground game is seemingly doing the heavy lifting. Ergo, if she can work on her serve, she could become a frightening prospect.
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