ALEX Eala may have made Tagalog heard on the world stage, but her fans have somehow managed to make their own vocabulary follow her around.
In an episode of Love All with Kim Clijsters, the four-time Grand Slam champion and tennis reporter Blair Henley found themselves discussing one of Eala’s fans’ just-for-fun inventions: the now-internationally heard “fukelya serve.”
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The colloquial term, coined by Eala’s Filipino supporters, is a popular bit of gay lingo with a vulgar reference to female genitalia. But in the Eala universe, it has taken on a much more tennis-specific meaning.
It pokes fun at the 21-year-old Filipina’s service motion, which for so long is one of the most criticized aspects of her game. Eala herself has learned to laugh along with it.
As her popularity soared, so has the entertainment value surrounding her matches. With the Tour often playing out in the wee hours of Philippine time, Filipino fans have found plenty of ways to keep themselves awake, including inventing their own language for Eala’s tennis.
Henley explained it best:
“Apparently, Alex Eala’s fans call her serve a ‘fukelya serve’ and it’s a slang, I may be pronouncing it wrong. It sort of represents the fact that it’s unconventional-looking but it gets the job done.”
And just like that, the fukelya serve went international.
Naturally, the same fans who coined the term had a field day upon realizing that it has made its way onto a podcast hosted by a four-time Slam champ.
One netizen summed up the collective reaction perfectly:
“Who’s gonna tell her?
Pinoy humor, now apparently reaching the WTA ranks.
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