ALEXANDRA Eala poured buckets of tears Saturday night — and they were not existential tears of joy but were instead real and big tears of dejection and disappointment, of missed chances and glory, of the vision of what could have been.
She was almost there. Just one more big serve. Perhaps one more slashing forehand or backhand, in both of which she has prowess. Or maybe just one more error from her 19-year-old rival from Australia. And the title would be hers!
It didn’t happen. Four chances to win, all in the tiebreak of a long, excruciating match ended in failure. A crosscourt from Maya Joint which Eala was unable to touch finally handed the Eastbourne tennis title to the Aussie on her second match point.
READ Alex Eala pours heart out after 'one of the toughest losses of my career'
Sadly, the heartbreaking loss came on the eve of Wimbledon, the tennis world’s most revered major, where she competes for the first time as a direct entry — in short, she had no need to go through qualifying like other mortals — because she has already rose through the ranks, 74th in the world as of today.
The Eastbourne experience will have one of two effects: It will make her a tentative player, still absorbed in what fate has just handed her in a relatively minor tournament; or it will make her fiercely determined to win the big one.
Happily, Alex has shown that she can face adversity, going by how she spoke with grace before a huge crowd to accept her runner-up cup just minutes after her devastating loss.
She was still crying, still holding the tears back, trying to take in the crowd, but she let out a smile when she offered her congratulations to Joint, in a gesture perhaps just as excruciating for a player who’s just lost a game she could’ve won.
But give credit to Joint, a lean and scrappy warrior who took everything that Eala threw at her, including the 6-1 drubbing in the second set which seemed to portent the beginning of the end for the mercurial Aussie.
Joint, who had been delivering her own strong message during the grass court season, having already won one singles title, packed a wallop in her lean frame, and eventually made her slight edge work in the crucial and mesmerizing tiebreak, one that she eventually won, 12-10, and with it, the whole match as well, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6.
Epic, thrilling contest
It was an epic, thrilling contest between two rising stars for a WTA 250 event. And with the two young stars battling it out like never-say-die champions — believe me, I thought of the stubbornness of Ali and Frazier in Manila — the middling event began taking on an excitement felt mainly in major events. So many highs, so many lows, so many good shots — and a number of bad ones, too — but whatever tension, energy, fatigue, and willpower the young champions generated went right out to the gallery.
Much as we root for Eala, you have to give it to Joint. When it seemed she’d all but lost her grip of the 2-hour-28-minute match after losing eight games in a nine-game stretch over the second and third sets, she bounced back, and sent Eala reeling.
In the third set, both the 20-year-old Eala and her opponent had their runs, with the Filipina pushing early, taking a 2-0 lead after breaking Joint. But to everyone’s surprise, the rejuvenated Aussie won four straight games to lead 4-2.
Eala countered with her own comeback and fashioned her own sterling run with a mammoth three-straight game win to take a 5-4 lead as the crowd sensed history in the making.
The two nervously held serve in the next three games for a 6-all tie that sent the match to a tiebreak — first to reach seven points with a two-point advantage wins the crown; if that doesn’t happen, then they play some more until one scores a two-point edge.
If the third set was nerve wracking, the tiebreak was electric and overwhelming. Eala’s mom, Rizza, and dad, Mike, who sat at courtside with their daughter’s player’s coach and trainer, might have died a thousand deaths watching their dear daughter fight for her first breakthrough win, the weight of her nation on her shoulders.
She looked like she was indeed poised to write one more chapter in the country’s tennis record book when she raced to a 5-2 lead and had two serves to complete her Cinderella story.
But the fickleness of the gods of tennis cannot be underestimated. She could not convert, giving Joint a new lease on victory. That failure probably stayed with her, although she posted the first of her four championship points at 6-5, then at 8-7, then 9-8, and lastly, at 10-9.
Joint won the next three games, resetting Eala’s bid for her first WTA title for another day and another tournament. Her mom was seen wiping her own tears even as Eala was struggling to control her own.
Wimbledon? Maybe too much of a stretch. But, if she can go deep, own a few scalps, turn pain into poetry, who knows?
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