Alexandra Eala may have just enjoyed the best run at a Grand Slam of her career, but it’s clear there is so much room for improvement.
Arguably, that is what makes her performance at Wimbledon this year that much more exciting. This is just the start.
Whilst wins over Maya Joint and, more importantly, Iga Swiatek are indicative of strong showings at the elite level, her loss to Jasmine Paolini has raised some questions about her capabilities to continue competing for these ultimate prizes.
Fortunately, the fix should be relatively simple.
Martina Navratilova has now told Tennis Channel exactly what Alexandra Eala must improve to truly establish herself as a genuine and consistent threat at the apex of the WTA Tour.
Martina Navratilova’s crucial advice for Alex Eala after she loses at Wimbledon
It was Jim Courier who first offered his analysis, but focused on Paolini.
He admitted: “She is, what you said, a maximiser.
How many Grand Slams will Alex Eala win in her career? 🏆
She's just knocked out the defending Wimbledon champion!
“That’s someone that, if she wasn’t playing tennis, you’d want her working for your company. Like, she’s gonna find a way to find solutions to problems, right? She’s an amazing problem-solver out there.
“And what her biggest problem is, physically, that she’s just not on the level of height and strength of a lot of her opposition, but she’s got great footwork, great foot speed.
“She makes her way to the net, and she can finish there. If you don’t have the power to finish from the baseline, you better be able to get into the net and finish. And she does that.
Then, asked what is next for Eala in terms of improvement, Navratilova quickly added: “Her serve. It’s too much of a puffball. Swiatek didn’t handle it well, but Paolini did. She was attacking the second serve. But even the first serve was like 80, 85. She can hit it 105, but she doesn’t.
“She needs to change the grip and use the leftyness more. She was not slicing.
She was hitting most of her serve to the Paolini forehand, not the backhand with a slice.
“So the serve is where she can gain the most, because she’s tall enough. Her serve should be as good, if not better than Paolini, because Paolini is shorter, so work on that.”
Swiatek complained about the slowness of Eala’s serve after their match, having failed to deal with it. However, most of the rest of the WTA Tour likely won’t have that problem. Like Paolini did, they will punish it.
What is next for Alex Eala after her historic Wimbledon run?
For Eala, her focus must now turn to hard courts, after a sensational grass-court season which included appearances in five different events.
Starting it off with a title in Birmingham laid the foundation for her success, before she then played at Queen’s, Bad Homburg and Berlin, reaching the semi-finals of the latter event.
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It should therefore have come as no surprise that she seemed one of the most equipped players at Wimbledon, soaring into the fourth round.
Eala is listed as part of a star-studded draw set to take part in the Mubadala DC Open in Washington, joining players like Venus Williams, Emma Raducanu, Iva Jovic, Madison Keys, Marta Kostyuk and Naomi Osaka.
That starts on July 27th, meaning she will get a good rest before then and ample time to acclimatise to the new surface.
