Alex Eala has delivered a positive assessment of her performance in her defeat to Elena Rybakina at the 2026 Italian Open as she spoke about her progress on clay.<\/p>\n
The Filipina was beaten 6-4, 6-3 by world No 2 Rybakina in the third round at the WTA 1000 tournament in Rome on Sunday.<\/p>\n
It was Eala\u2019s first-ever match against Rybakina \u2014 a 26-year-old Kazakh star who won her second Grand Slam title at the 2026 Australian Open.<\/p>\n
Eala<\/a> was making just her second appearance at the Italian Open after a first round exit on her debut last year.<\/p>\n The 20-year-old defeated Magdalena Frech 6-0, 3-6, 6-4 in the first round and Wang Xinyu 6-4, 6-3 in the second round at the Foro Italico.<\/p>\n After her campaign in Rome ended, Eala took to Instagram to write: \u201cRome heard me this time. Grazie mille!\u201d<\/p>\n Alex Eala\u2019s rankings rise and prize money total revealed after Italian Open exit<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Italian Open: Alex Eala answers \u2018pressure\u2019 question as she addresses Joao Fonseca comparison<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as\u00a0<\/span>a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking to reporters following her loss to Rybakina, Eala said: \u201cYeah, I\u2019m happy with my performance. I think I was able to reach a good level of tennis and I don\u2019t think it was an easy win for her.<\/p>\n \u201cSo yeah, of course, things to work on and learnings from this match, but I think I\u2019m in a good way.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were very competitive games, but I think that she has the capacity to win a couple more free points, and of course she\u2019s much more experienced than I am.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s the reigning Grand Slam champ; she won Australia and she\u2019s been doing great since then. So I think the experience and many other factors helped her today.<\/p>\n \u201cShe hits a good ball, so it\u2019s very difficult [to be aggressive]. I think, of course, sometimes being aggressive is really my game, but in the end, she (Rybakina) is two metres, so it\u2019s difficult. But I think today, I did what I could.\u201d<\/p>\n On her development as a player on clay, Eala added:\u00a0\u201cI think I moved well today and I took my chances when I needed to.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very happy because I do see the improvement on clay court, especially when you compare it to my experience here last year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really happy with how I\u2019ve been playing and the work I\u2019ve been doing off competition with my team.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Aryna Sabalenka makes 25-word statement after shock early Italian Open exit<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Alex Eala speaks out after her Italian Open loss to Elena Rybakina<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alex Eala has delivered a positive assessment of her performance in her defeat to Elena Rybakina at the 2026 Italian Open as she spoke about her progress on clay. The Filipina was beaten 6-4, 6-3 by world No 2 Rybakina in the third round at the WTA 1000 tournament in Rome on Sunday. It was […]<\/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-2159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159","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=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n