MADRID — Ahead of the Madrid Open, the Tennis Channel shared a graphic on X of Alexandra Eala’s projected schedule to the final. This might have seemed a touch premature for the world No. 72, who is 19 and has never entered a WTA tournament without a wildcard, but it looked especially so given her second-round opponent. Seemingly a footnote in Eala’s story was Iga Świątek, defending champion in Madrid, the winner of four French Opens, and already a contender to be the greatest women’s clay-court player of all time at 23.
There are limits to what can be read into a social media graphic, but Świątek’s up-and-down start to the year, which most recently saw her lose to nemesis Jelena Ostapenko at the Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany, has lent an air of vulnerability to her tennis even on her favorite surface.
In this context, Thursday’s 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Eala was especially satisfying. All the more so since Eala, a talented left-hander from the Philippines, stunned Świątek in their first meeting in Miami a month ago. On that occasion, Świątek struggled to handle Eala’s angles and her omnidirectional forehand, overhitting on countless returns against a spinny but ultimately very slow serve.
Świątek had to dig deep to ensure she avoided another repeat of that result, recovering from a deficit of a set and twice a break down. The pair’s meeting in Miami had been littered with service breaks, and so it was little surprise when Świątek dropped her serve straight away. She had a couple of chances to break back immediately but missed them both, as Eala’s slow-paced deliveries appeared to affect her timing in the Madrid altitude.
It set the tone for a set in which Świątek held break points in four out of five return games but only converted one — and by that stage, she was already a double break down. Świątek was in control of most of the games and the points but kept overhitting early in rallies, unable to take advantage of Eala’s limited movement on clay by constructing points and instead going for too much too early time and again. There were times when it seemed that she was thrown off by the slowness of her opponent’s serve, borne out by the fact that in the first set, Eala won more points on her second serve (58 percent) than her first (54 percent).
Świątek made 22 unforced errors in the first set, which accounted for 63 per cent of the 35 points Eala won. Świątek was so disappointed with her high error count in the match that she went for extra practice after it had finished. “I just felt like there was some stuff I needed to work on, and it was best to do it right after so the body can remember the good movement,” she explained in a news conference afterward. “We worked for like 30 minutes on the court, so it’s good that I had the opportunity to do that.” She added that the errors in the first set were partly due to her acclimatizing to the Madrid altitude, and that she had increased the tension on her racket at the end of it to try and change something.
Alex Eala took the first set against Iga Świątek. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
Eala broke again at the start of the second set, helped by another wild double fault from Swiatek when she was up game point. The Filipina was standing well up on her opponent’s second serve, her aggressive position forcing Świątek to go for too much. Świątek, by contrast, made little adjustment for the fact that her opponent’s second serves were often crawling over to her side of the net at barely 70mph.
She was, though, starting to get a better handle on Eala’s delivery and broke back immediately for 1-1. And after exchanging another couple of breaks, Świątek broke to love with her most patient game of the match, moving Eala from side to side with margin and putting the ball away with plenty of space to the lines to win the second set 6-4 and level the match at one-set all.
“I wanted to keep my margins and play a little bit more safe, to just play more balls in because I was making some unforced errors that weren’t really necessary,” Świątek said of her improvement in the second set.
Belatedly taking the time to construct the points rather than going for the quick kill, Świątek greater consistency and durability saw her roll down hill from there, and despite Eala breaking once more to delay the inevitable at 5-1 down, Świątek smashed a return winner down the line at 5-2, deuce and then patiently built a rally to draw an error from Eala’s racket and end the match. “What was different (from the Miami match) is that she executed better in the important moments, Eala told a small group of reporters afterward. “And she had a little higher level than me in specific moments of the match.”
This was not just an important victory after last week’s setback against Ostapenko, but a timely reminder that on a clay court, there are very few matches in which Świątek is not the protagonist, whatever the hype may be around her opponent.
As for whether she had been aware of the fanfare around Eala ahead of the match, Świątek said: “I understand that there’s hype about these young players, but you’ve got to be focused on yourself. And, honestly, I didn’t realize it, I kind of had better things to think about.”
(Top photo: Oscar J. Barroso / Europa Press via Getty Images)
