Alex Eala’s bid to maintain elite stature faces immense pressure

ALEXANDRA “ALEX” EALA will thread a steep, rocky and muddy road to the Miami Open glory just in order to defend her lucrative ranking points and stay inside the Top 30 of the world’s best.

Albeit getting a first-round bye as the No. 31 seed, Ms. Eala’s path in the lower bracket just to reach a must final four finish like last year goes through a slew of Top 10 players and Grand Slam champions.

The 20-year-old Filipina wunderkind, catapulted by a Last 16 finish in the Indian Wells Open considered as the “Fifth Grand Slam,” marches into Miami with a new career-best ranking of WTA No. 29, up from No. 32 last week.

But Ms. Eala’s bid to retain that elite stature faces immense pressure starting in Round 2 against either No. 53 Laura Siegemund of Germany or No. 76 Petra Marcinko of Croatia.

From a relatively unknown player last year who caught everybody by surprise as the No. 140 player, Ms. Eala is a marked woman now in Miami, needing to keep the 390 points she gained following a run for the ages from being a wildcard to the final four upon the expiration of points on Wednesday.

And one of those gladly waiting to exact vengeance on the lefty ace is world No. 3 Iga Swiatek, who is projected to take care of either compatriot Magda Linette (No. 50) or Varvara Gracheva of France (No. 60) to reach Round of 32.

Ms. Swiatek was among the three Top 25 players and former Grand Slam champions (along with Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko and USA’s Madison Keys) beaten by Ms. Eala in Miami last year to become the first Filipina WTA semifinalist.

That campaign pushed her to Top 100 to qualify in all main draws of WTA 1000-level tours and all four Grand Slams before climbing the ranks this season to Top 50, Top 40 and now Top 30.

To say that the climb gets tougher for Ms. Eala, should all the stars align, from there on would be an understatement as an early exit would scratch the 390 points from 1525-point total as of Wednesday and drag her all the way to around Top 50-60 (1135 points) once again just like where she started this season.

By the fourth round, either world No. 13 Karolina Muchova of Czechia or No. 16 Clara Tauson of Denmark is tipped to challenge her then it would be one between world No. 9 Victoria Mboko of Canada or No. 10 Mirra Andreeva of Russia in the quarterfinals.

Ms. Eala has to beat all of those marquee names just to retain the said 390 points and get in the Final Four, where either her good friend and world No. 4 Coco Gauff or No. 6 Amanda Anisimova of the United States are expected to be waiting.

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and No. 2 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan lead the upper bracket, tipped to slug it out for a final ticket.

The battlelines are drawn, the goal is set and it’s on Ms. Eala — with a legion of Filipino fans behind once again — to either reach new heights as the world’s rising poster girl or drastically drop from the world’s list of elite of the elites.

And only time can tell, pitting Ms. Eala against a Czech or French foe in Round 2 on Thursday after the ongoing qualifiers and the start of the main draw. — John Bryan Ulanday