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FORMER world tennis pros and champions are counting on Alexandra \u201cAlex\u201d Eala to take care of her business in the Wimbledon opener to arrange a gigantic second-round showdown with American legend and former world No. 1 Serena Williams as the grass championships kick off on Monday at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London.<\/p>\n
Ms. Eala, the first Filipina seeded player in Grand Slam history at No. 29, and Ms. Williams, as a wildcard in her tennis return after four years, are in the lower bracket of the stacked 128-player field with a possibility of meeting in the second round.<\/p>\n
And just like every tennis fan in the world, the sporting greats are buckling up on their seats for the probable epic showdown between the rising Filipina star and the grizzled veteran with 23 Grand Slam crowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Serena\u2019s (Williams) going to get through Maya Joint and I think Ms. Eala\u2019s going to win her opener as well so that\u2019s going to be Serena and Eala in the second round. And that\u2019s going to be another center court matchup,\u201d said Canadian-British great Greg Rusedski on his \u201cOff Court with Greg Rusedski\u201d podcast leading up to the queen of grass tournaments.<\/p>\n
Mr. Rusedski, 52, was the No. 1 British player in the 90s and reached a career-best ranking of ATP No. 4 after feats as a quarterfinalist and finalist in the 1997 Wimbledon and US Open, respectively.<\/p>\n
Former world No. 1 Andy Roddick, 43, of the United States echoed the same sentiment, even stretching to a point of envisioning an Eala-Williams duel already in the second round.<\/p>\n
So, who wins in the duel between contrasting players with the lefty Ms. Eala, known for her groundstrokes, and the right-handed power server in Ms. Williams coming out of retirement for her first singles game since the 2022 US Open?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a tough one because Ms. Eala switches directions really well. The one thing that I\u2019m worried about with Ms. Serena is someone hitting behind her when she\u2019s moving (in the doubles), like movement is going to be everything for her (in singles), that\u2019s what we don\u2019t know,\u201d said 2003 US Open champion Mr. Roddick on his \u201cServed with Andy Roddick\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cServe looks good, ball-striking looks good. I haven\u2019t heard a ton of reports as people are keeping it pretty locked up. Ms. Eala can spread the court and she can play in both directions. This is a really hard one. She can expose Ms. Serena but she doesn\u2019t serve that well.\u201d<\/p>\n
But like Ms. Eala and Ms. Williams, it\u2019s first things first for Messrs. Rusedski and Roddick \u2014 and that\u2019s for their bets to hurdle the first round against equally tough opponents.<\/p>\n
Ms. Eala, the WTA No. 30, will battle Mexican veteran Renata Zarazua, WTA No. 76, while the unranked Ms. Williams goes up against WTA No. 53 Ms. Joint, the tormentor of Ms. Eala for her foiled first WTA title in 2025, in a still-to-be-determined game time and court designation as the main draw gets going on Monday.<\/p>\n
Also in their singles\u2019 bracket are world No. 3 Iga Swiatek of Poland, No. 14 Jasmine Paolini of Italy and No. 8 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine who are projected to be in their way from the third round up to the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Then it\u2019s either No. 2 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, No. 6 Amanda Anisimova of USA or Ms. Eala\u2019s kryptonite Linda Noskova of Czechia, No. 10, who could be waiting at the semifinals to complete the lower bracket against the upper draw led by world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.<\/p>\n
Ms. Eala will also strut her stuff in the doubles with WTA No. 46 Nikola Bartunkova of Czechia while Ms. Williams partners with her sister Venus \u2014 Ms. Eala\u2019s teammate in a Bad Homburg quarterfinal finish \u2014 as a wildcard pair albeit they are on different brackets.<\/p>\n
Riding on a 9-3 grass season slate marked by a Birmingham title and Berlin semis stint, the graduate of the Rafael Nadal Academy on Sunday had her final preparations for Wimbledon by trading shots with Ms. Bartunkova and her good pal and WTA No. 54 Zeynep Sonmez of Turkey. \u2014 John Bryan Ulanday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORMER world tennis pros and champions are counting on Alexandra \u201cAlex\u201d Eala to take care of her business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,364870,85,747],"class_list":["post-765752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-john-bryan-ulanday","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}