Alexandra Eala’s Wimbledon campaign came to a grinding halt on Monday afternoon.
Eala, seeded 29th in London, was beaten by 14th seed Jasmine Paolini – who sent a message to Roger Federer during her post-match speech.
Paolini defeated the young Filipina 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, and will now play Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in the quarter-finals.
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It was a valiant effort from Eala; however, she may live to rue her missed opportunity after converting only three of 10 break-point chances.
Martina Navratilova, a nine-time singles champion in south-west London, was also left confused by one particular decision that Eala was making during Monday’s match.
Martina Navratilova left confused by Alex Eala’s decision making on serve
At 4-3 in the second set, the BBC posted a graphic highlighting the serving patterns of Alex Eala.
The graphic showed that Eala was hitting only 33 per cent of her serves out wide on the advantage side, and only 37 per cent down the ‘T’ when on the deuce side.
This seems a strange tactical decision from Eala.
Paolini’s best groundstroke is her forehand, yet Eala seemed to be focusing her attention on that area of the Italian’s game.
Alex Eala’s Wimbledon campaign
- R1: defeated Renata Zarazua 6-1, 6-2
- R2: defeated Maya Joint 3-6, 6-2, 6-0
- R3: defeated Iga Świątek 7-6, 6-2
- R4: defeated by Jasmine Paolini, 4-6, 6-4, 3-6
Martina Navratilova, the former world number one, described these decisions made by Eala as ‘crazy.’
“For a lefty this is crazy,” Navratilova said while commentating for the BBC. “She is serving so much more out wide in the deuce court and T in ad court.
“Only a third of her serves are slices to the backhand, particularly in the ad court. I don’t understand that. She is not using her ‘leftyness’ to her advantage nearly as much as she can.
“I think she opens up a bit early and her grip is a bit too much of a forehand grip.
“I would open it up to a backhand one to get more pronation and pace on the ball, but it’s the location that is baffling me more than anything. She has that serve but she does not use it.
“By contrast I think Paolini is hitting too many balls to the Eala backhand.”
Laura Robson disagreed with Martina Navratilova
Laura Robson, a silver medallist in mixed doubles at the 2012 Olympic Games, expressed her disagreement with Navratilova’s assessment.
The junior Wimbledon champion, who oversees the running of the Queen’s Club Championships, argued that – with Eala not having the fastest serve – it made little sense for the Filipina to slide the ball out wide on the ‘ad’ side and potentially offer Paolini the opportunity to strike a backhand winner.
“For me I don’t know if I want to see more leftyness from Eala, especially when she doesn’t have the pace on the ball,” Robson commented.
“When you are going wide on the ad side you need it to move off the court, if it’s going to sit there and it’s 95mph, Paolini is too good of a returner and cuts the angle off too well on her backhand side, so it would just sit in the slot for her.
“So only go out wide if you are going to accelerate into it.”
After losing at Wimbledon, Eala will now look ahead to the North American hard-court swing.
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The youngster competed in two events during last year’s North American campaign: the Canadian Open and the US Open.
Eala was beaten in the first round in Canada by Marketa Vondrousova. Eala then travelled to New York, where she secured her first career victory on the Grand Slam stage by defeating Clara Tauson in a three-set thriller.
