Alex Eala has been backed to fulfil her potential and become a great player with Mats Wilander saying she reminds him of former world No 1 Marcelo Rios as he also highlighted her key strength.
The teenager has taken the tennis world by storm following her stunning performances at the Miami Open where she defeated three Grand Slam winners.
Ranked No 140 before the tournament, Eala was handed a wildcard entry for the WTA 1000 event and upset 2017 French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko, reigning Australian Open winner Madison Keys and five-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek en route to reaching the semi-final.
With those results, she became the first Filipina to reach the last four of a WTA Tour event with her run eventually ended by Jessica Pegula.
The 19-year-old, though, broke into the top 100 of the WTA Rankings on the back of her semi-final appearance as she surged 65 places to No 75.
Although impressed by the fact that “she can do anything”, Wilander is excited by the fact that she plays “mystical” tennis.
“With Alexandra Eala, we’re talking about someone who has hands given by God,” the seven-time Grand Slam winner told TNT Sports.
“She understands the game as good as any player on tour. She reminds me of Marcelo Rios, where the talent is just boiling out of the fingers and boiling out of her hand, and she can do anything. And then the reason I say Marcelo Rios is, of course, she’s left-handed.”
He added: “In the women’s game, that is so cool that we have someone that comes out that does all these things that maybe [Aryna] Sabalenka and Swiatek are not great at doing. They’re great at other things.
“But suddenly, we have a player that can play tennis that is mystical to the rest of us. Like, ‘Oh, my God, how do you do that? How do you understand tennis? How do you hit those shots?’
“The feel, the understanding, I love it. It’s basically what John McEnroe did to us in the 1980s.”
Swiatek admitted after the quarter-final defeat that some aspects Eala’s game surprised her.
“I didn’t know she’s going to play that flat, but besides that, well, she was really aggressive, you know, and she kept her focus. And, like, I don’t know, some of these shots were pretty like out of nowhere,” the world No 2 stated.
“But still, you know, I could see clearly she has intentions to go forward and to push. So it worked for her today, for sure.”
Eala learned her trade at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Manacor as she joined in her early teens before going on to win the 2022 US Open Girls’ title.
She has won five ITF trophies, but is yet to play in the main draw of a Grand Slam. That, though, will no doubt change in the coming months.
“To me, Eala is such a breath of fresh air and I don’t think that she’s going to go away, she’s too smart, her talent is too good, she’s too gifted,” Wilander added.
“She learned how to win when she was 12, so that’s not a problem. We’re going to love watching her develop into a great player, because I do think that she’s going to become one.”