Alex Eala is one of tennis’ brightest and most upbeat personalities, but she cut a frustrated figure last night.
However, that was to be expected when the Filipina sensation was drawn against Laura Siegemund.
A wily, experienced and at times frustrating player, the 38-year-old is renowned for her gamesmanship and ability to infuriate her opponents.
Even Alexandra Eala, despite her win, was not above rising to her opponent in their recent Miami Open match.
Alex Eala’s complaint during her match vs Laura Siegemund
It must take something very special to get Eala to complain to the umpire, but that’s exactly what Siegemund managed to do.
Fortunately, there is a statistic that perfectly encapsulates exactly what the German was doing which invoked such a reaction.
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Briefly shown on Tennis Channel’s feed, they showed the percentage of serve points where each player had taken over 25 seconds to serve, thus flouting the shot clock rule.
Whilst Eala was not completely innocent with her 57%, it pales in comparison to Siegemund’s 85%.
This unsurprisingly provoked the 20-year-old, who spoke to the umpire: “Can you watch her time, because many times she’s delaying.
“I was about to serve. Yeah, but she stopped the point. I was about to serve, and she turned around.”
Fortunately, the umpire managed to defuse this situation, and Eala went on to win the match 6-7, 6-3, 6-3.
Tennis needs to fix the shot clock rule immediately
With this latest complaint adding to Carlos Alcaraz’s recent argument with the umpire during this match in Qatar, it’s clear that tennis needs to make a change to the shot clock rule.
After all, it is causing so much grief, and the solution is so simple.
Common sense has to prevail from those in the chair, entrusted with keeping the matches in order and the players content.
If a player is coming off the back of a gruelling point, perhaps the shot clock can be ignored for a few extra seconds, within reason.
But when players like Siegemund are routinely flouting the rules, they need to be enforced with severity.
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The 25 seconds are a crucial framework, but cannot be the only metric against which players are judged.
It takes an intelligent umpire with knowledge of the sport, as well as the ability to use context to their advantage, to rule the shot clock properly.
An ability to achieve this should be paramount for a person in this position, particularly as their roles seem to diminish with each new season with technology slowly taking over.
