What Leylah Fernandez had to say about Alex Eala after their Stuttgart match
Leylah Fernandez claimed a straight-set win over Alex Eala in their opening match of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, but she admits she it was a lot tougher than the scoreline suggests.
The pair faced each other for the first time on the WTA Tour and world No 25 Fernandez dominated the first set as she raced into a 5-0 lead with two breaks of serve, eventually taking it 6-1.
The Canadian was also quick out of the blocks in the second set as she again broke twice for a 5-2 lead, but the world No 45 hit back as she claimed one break and then held serve to put the pressure back on Fernandez.
And it was during the Eala serve at 5-4 where her coach urged her to stay focused despite her big advantage.
“Honestly, it’s what my coach told me at 0-30, 5-4. He said, ‘she’s not going to go down easy as you can see. She’s going to fight. You’re going to have to take the match,” she said during her on-court interview during Sky Sports’ live broadcast.
“So I was glad that I trusted him and I trusted the training that we’d done. So, happy to get the win here.”
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Eala managed to save two match points during that game as she ended up holding serve before Fernandez got the job done in game 10 for a 6-1, 6-4 victory.
Asked to rate her performance, the 23-year-old replied: “It was definitely a very, very high performance. I’d say seven out of 10. It was eight, nine out of 10 until 6-1, 5-2. But, you know, there’s always that little lapse of concentration.
“I’m just glad that I stayed positive as much as possible and of course the crowd helped me so, dankeschon.”
Fernandez will face either Zeynep Sonmez or fifth seed Jasmine Paolini in the second round while Eala’s next event is the Madrid Open, which gets underway on 21 April.
There are a few similarities between the Canadian and 20-year-old Filipina Eala as they are both left-handers while Fernandez’s mother is Canadian-Filipino.
Fernandez, of course, has been a star on the WTA Tour since 2021 when she finished runner-up to Emma Raducanu at the US Open while Eala only made her breakthrough at the top level last March when she reached the semi-final of the Miami Open to surge into the top 100 of the WTA Rankings.
“I remember watching her play a couple years back at the Rafa Nadal Academy and she was playing super fast,” Fernandez said.
“And I remember telling my coach at the time saying like, wow, she plays quick. So it was like a mirror because he said, look, it’s exactly like you.”
