Former world No 4 Greg Rusedski has backed Alex Eala to \u201cfigure it out\u201d on clay after the Filipina star\u2019s one-sided loss at the 2026 Madrid Open.<\/p>\n
Eala<\/a> suffered a 6-2, 6-1 defeat to world No 21 Elise Mertens in the second round at the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid on Friday.<\/p>\n The world No 44 lost her serve five times and was unable to break the 30-year-old Belgian, while she won 38 of the 99 points played.<\/p>\n The 21-year-old defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 6-3 in her opening round match in the Spanish capital.<\/p>\n Eala was beaten 6-1, 6-4 by Leylah Fernandez in the first round at the Stuttgart Open last week. She started her clay campaign at the WTA 500 in Linz, where she beat Julia Grabher before falling to Jelena Ostapenko.<\/p>\n Speaking on the latest Off Court Cuts episode of his podcast<\/a>, Rusedski assessed Eala\u2019s clay-court season so far and the convincing nature of her last two defeats.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s the harder hitters. It\u2019s being on tour week in and week out. And you\u2019re going to take some bruising losses,\u201d said the 1997 US Open runner-up.<\/p>\n Madrid Open: Alex Eala\u2019s ranking points and prize money from WTA 1000 event<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Former British No 1 says Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s injury nightmare \u2018puts a lot of things in doubt\u2019 amid Wimbledon claim<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the one she lost the week previous in Stuttgart to Leylah Fernandez\u2026 I mean, she (Fernandez) pushed Rybakina all the way.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, the losses she (Eala) takes are not bad losses, it\u2019s sometimes the scorelines. And this is part of the learning experience.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s too good a player, she\u2019ll figure it out. And what I like is her resilience.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if you\u2019re a fan out there, just be a little patient. It might take a little bit longer for her, but she\u2019s got a great team of people around her. And she\u2019s got to find solutions. So don\u2019t get too discouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n Discussing Eala earlier this month, Rusedski said: \u201cFor me, I\u2019m always optimistic about her.<\/p>\n \u201cI always think she\u2019s challenging herself. She has a great team of people around her. She\u2019s fully committed and she\u2019s got great support.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd everything\u2019s kind of new at the moment. We\u2019ve talked about, yes, the serve needs to be better. Yes, when she comes [up against] a big hitter, sometimes she struggles and gets hit off the court. But you gotta consistently put yourself out there.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s gonna get stronger physically, she\u2019s gonna get more tactically astute, she\u2019s gonna start hitting the ball harder.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Jannik Sinner speaks out about Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s \u2018very sad\u2019 French Open withdrawal<\/a> The post Alex Eala gets candid assessment from Grand Slam finalist after one-sided Madrid Open loss<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former world No 4 Greg Rusedski has backed Alex Eala to \u201cfigure it out\u201d on clay after the Filipina star\u2019s one-sided loss at the 2026 Madrid Open. Eala suffered a 6-2, 6-1 defeat to world No 21 Elise Mertens in the second round at the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid on Friday. The world No […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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