Alexandra Eala has just reached the first WTA final of her career at the Eastbourne Open, becoming the first Filipina player in history to do so.
Eala defeated Varvara Gracheva 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 to book her place in the championship match, where she will face Australian teenager Maya Joint.
The 20-year-old burst onto the scene at the Miami Open earlier this year, defeating three former Grand Slam champions en route to the final: Jelena Ostapenko, Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek.
Despite struggling to build on her breakthrough in the tour-level events that have followed, she is now thriving on grass and looks to be in great form ahead of Wimbledon.
In her first round matchup at the All England Club, Eala will play defending champion Barbora Krejcikova, against whom she will have a great chance to make history.
In her grass season so far, Krejcikova has crashed out of Queen’s in the first round, and after two wins in Eastbourne, withdrew from her third-round clash with Varvara Gracheva due to ongoing injury struggles.
The Czech star is still set to feature at Wimbledon, but with her recent results taken into consideration, her title defence could be over sooner rather than later.
Should Eala emerge victorious over the 2024 champion, she will become just the fifth player in tennis history to knock the defending champion out in the first round of Wimbledon.
Charlie Pasarell of the US became the first to achieve the feat in 1967, when he defeated 1967 champion Manuel Santana in round one.
Since then, Steffi Graf (1994), Lleyton Hewitt (2003), and most recently Marketa Vondrousova (2024) have also seen their pursuit of consecutive titles end abruptly in their opening matches at the championships.
Vondrousova entered Wimbledon in 2024 despite having withdrawn from the second round of the Berlin Open due to a shoulder injury that had been bothering her.
In the first round, she was drawn against Jessica Bouzas of Spain, whom she had never played against.
The bout ended 6-4, 6-2, in favour of the unseeded Spaniard, who cruised into the second round of a major for the first time in her career.
After her exit from the tournament, Vondrousova didn’t play another match for the remainder of the season and underwent surgery on her shoulder in August later that summer.
She returned to action at the Adelaide International in January, and despite taking time off again from February to May in 2025, she is back to her best ahead of Wimbledon.
