Tennis great Kim Clijsters has broken down Alex Eala’s game and revealed how the Filipina star makes her opponents “very uncomfortable.”
Eala soared to her career-high ranking of world No 31 after her run to the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 event in Dubai last week.
The 20-year-old upset world No 8 Jasmine Paolini — her third win over a top 10 player — in the second round in Dubai, while she also defeated Hailey Baptiste and Sorana Cirstea before losing to Coco Gauff.
The Filipina, who had a breakout season in 2025, holds a 10-6 record in 2026 (including matches at WTA Challenger/125 level).
Speaking on the latest episode of her Love All podcast, Clijsters explained what Eala does so well.
“Well, there’s a lot of things that she does really well. And I think there’s a lot of things that make her opponents very uncomfortable,” said the former world No 1.
“She has, you know, one of the things that she can’t control is that she’s a left-hander. There’s always something about playing a left-hander, you get pulled out of the court a little bit differently with her forehand cross court.
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“Her forehand is really good, but I think her backhand is better, her backhand is a little bit more of an aggressive shot.
“The combination of her aggressive baseline shots, with her backhand, and then the ability to hit a heavier spin and make your opponents step back a little bit behind the baseline, being able to make the angle with her forehand and open up the court, a lot of times to her opponent’s backhand — is something that a lot of players have a really hard time dealing with.
“And her footwork is really good, she has great stamina. We’ve seen her, [against] Iga [Swiatek] last year, where she played a really good match. She’s still very young, but we see the mental growth as well.”
The four-time Grand Slam champion went on to describe Eala as a “pit bull” and compared her to former world No 4 Dominika Cibulkova.
“She reminds me a little bit of a… she has that kind of pitbull, [Dominika] Cibulkova was a little bit like that, to me, as well,” the Belgian continued.
“They have such quick feet, but the ability from a defensive situation to still move into the court and become an aggressive player is a very tough combination to handle on the other side of the net.
“So very interesting, has done great things so far at a young age. Still has some improvements to get to, and consistency is something that’s going to be very important. A lot of players know her now, know her strengths, know her weaknesses.
“So that’s something that she’s going to have to deal with as well — is to make sure she can make her strengths become even stronger, but work on some of the weaknesses.”
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