Over one week this spring, Alexandra Eala became a superstar. She defeated former Grand Slam champions Iga Świątek, Jelena Ostapenko, and Madison Keys to earn her spot in the semifinals of the Miami Open and made her debut into the top 100. Her rise was exciting to watch, but for Eala, now 20, it was the product of a lifetime of hard work. “The results that I’ve been getting,” she says, “have been cooking for years.”
In the months that followed that breakthrough moment, Eala collected a series of firsts: Her Grand Slam debut at Roland Garros, playing doubles with Coco Gauff in Rome (“I slid into her DMs,” Eala admits with a smile), her first WTA final (at Eastbourne in June), and her first time on Wimbledon’s storied Centre Court. “Short term, I’m just trying to maintain this level that I’m on,” she says. “I’m trying to take it week by week. Long term, I want to be number one in the world, but [that’s a] long way away. It’s important to dream big.”
Her potential for greatness was clear at Wimbledon, when notably, she took a set off defending champion Barbora Krejčíková. Though Krejčíková went on to win, the Czech player gave her opponent credit in her post-match interview. “She was smashing the ball. She was cleaning the lines,” Krejčíková said. “Wow. It’s the next generation coming up. She’s gonna be really good in a couple of years.”
Next week, she’ll play in the U.S. Open main draw for the first time—part of a new class of young, global tennis talent that includes Canada’s Victoria Mboko, Brazil’s João Fonseca, and Russia’s Mirra Andreeva.
