Although hard-pressed to collect as many points as possible in her next three tournaments to land a spot at the Wimbledon, the country’s pride Alexandra ‘Alex’ Eala has a fighting chance to do so, thanks to a championship win in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 125 Birmingham Open in London, England.
Eala’s victory gave the 21-year-old rising star 76 points and boosted her total to 1,416, climbing four spots in the rankings from No. 37 to 33, just one spot outside the top 32 players who will be given seeds at the Wimbledon schedule on June 29 to July 12.
Based on tournament policy, seeded players get favorable draws as they won’t face each other for the first two rounds of the third Grand Slam of the year, taking on lower-ranked players, qualifiers or wildcards instead.
With American and world No. 30 Hailey Baptiste out for the rest of season due to an injury, Eala is practically within the magic circle, but there are still two weeks left until the seeding cutoff set on June 22.
The Quezon City lass thus needs a respectable run in her next three tournaments beginning with the WTA 500 HSBC Championships that started last Sunday (June 7) until June 14 to gain or defend enough points and stay in the top 32 listing.
After this, Eala will then compete in the qualifiers of the 500 Berlin Tennis Open from June 15 to June 21, as well as the 500 Bad Homburg Open from June 21 to 27.
She now enters a crucial stage where she is in the offing for a Wimbledon seed but at the same time is at risk of not reaching it.
She earned 163 ranking points last year for reaching the final of the Eastbourne Open but those points were about to expire right at the seeding cutoff (June 22) for this year’s Wimbledon. This puts more pressure on Eala to make a good run, especially in her next two tournaments to generate enough points that will negate her impending point-drop, and eventually keep her at the 30th-32nd rank plateau in the seeding cutoff.