Alex Eala’s 2026 Miami Open campaign came to an end in the round of 16 as she suffered a heavy defeat to Karolina Muchova and legendary coach Brad Gilbert believes the loss highlighted a key aspect of her game that needs drastic improvement.
After wins over Laura Siegemund and Magda Linette, Eala faced her first seeded player in Florida as she took on the 13th-seeded Czech and the 2023 French Open runner-up proved way too strong as she secured 6-0, 6-2 victory in 60 minutes.
The Filipina – who reached the semi-finals in Miami last year – struggled from the opening game of the match and won only four points on serve in the first set that lasted only 22 minutes. Although there was an improvement in the second set, it took her until the 11th game to finally get on the scoreboard.
The 20-year-old also made it to the fourth round of the Indian Wells Open a fortnight ago, but exited in a similar manner as she was 6-2, 6-0 by Linda Noskova while she went down 6-0, 6-2 against Coco Gauff in the quarter-final of the Dubai Tennis Championship.
Gilbert – who mentored Gauff when she won the 2023 US Open while he also coached Andre Agassi during six of his eight Grand Slam titles – took to social media to reveal where the world No 29 needs to up her game.
“Muchova [is] all over Eala 9-0,” the American wrote on X. “For someone of her height and especially being [a] lefty, [she] needs to dramatically improve [her] first and second serve.
“Shows how good other parts of her game are.”
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Eala has enjoyed an incredible rise in the past year, as 12 months ago she started the Miami Open outside the top 100, but beat the likes of Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek to reach the last four.
That run helped her to crack the top 75 in the WTA Rankings and later in the year she broke into the top 50 before reaching a new career-high of No 29 last week on the back of her Indian Wells Open performance.
Although she has wins over the likes over top-10 stars Keys, Swiatek, Jasmine Paolini and Gauff, she has also suffered some heavy defeats, but that is all part of the learning curve.
Eala’s attention will now switch to the clay-court season as her next WTA Tour event is the Upper Austria Ladies Linz that runs from 6-12 April.
She is set to be seeded seventh at the WTA 500 tournament with the likes of Ekaterina Alexandrova, Clara Tauson and Emma Raducanu also seeded.