Former world No 4 Greg Rusedski has proclaimed that Alex Eala has \u201cput a message out to everybody\u201d ahead of the 2026 US Open by winning the Washington Open title.<\/p>\n
Eala<\/a> defeated world No 3 Jessica Pegula 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the final at the WTA 500 tournament in Washington DC to secure her maiden tour-level title.<\/p>\n The Filipina star\u2019s victory has lifted her to a new career-high ranking of world No 20 after she started last week at her previous best position of 28th.<\/p>\n The 21-year-old, who also beat world No 10 Elina Svitolina in the Washington quarter-finals, now holds an outstanding 9-4 record against opponents ranked in the top 10.<\/p>\n Speaking on the latest episode of the Off Court With Greg Rusedski<\/a> podcast, Rusedski hailed Eala following her title breakthrough.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s just a ray of light for the WTA tour,\u201d said Rusedski, a 1997 US Open finalist and former British No 1.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s the best thing that\u2019s happened to it in a long while. We needed a big superstar and she\u2019s filling those boots.<\/p>\n \u2018Alex Eala could someday be world No 1\u2019, says legendary coach<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Andy Roddick explains what Alex Eala does on court which makes players \u2018uncomfortable\u2019<\/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 \u201cSo, right now she\u2019s put a message out to everybody, \u2018okay, I might be ready for that first major title at the US Open.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut then big guns will be in there like [Aryna] Sabalenka, [Elena] Rybakina. They\u2019re the ones who are going to try to attack the second serve. And we saw Pegula trying to do that.<\/p>\n \u201cI love her mentality, her fighting attitude, the way she holds her ground on those returns and groundstrokes is so impressive, and the doggedness and the determination she has is second to none.<\/p>\n \u201cShe looks like a real superstar who just keeps on getting better week in, week out. And also she\u2019s in the top 20 in the world now. That\u2019s a big step forward as well.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, everything looks good and this is huge for the WTA. This is exactly what they need. Can you imagine the reception she\u2019s gonna get in Toronto? It\u2019s already sold out for her. They\u2019re gonna be going crazy.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just so impressed with her. And I just think she has it upstairs (in the mind), which is a huge ingredient in her sport.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: US Open withdrawal list: 7 players OUT as Emma Raducanu and American star join growing list<\/a> The post Alex Eala has \u2018put a message out to everybody\u2019 about her US Open title chances<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former world No 4 Greg Rusedski has proclaimed that Alex Eala has \u201cput a message out to everybody\u201d ahead of the 2026 US Open by winning the Washington Open title. Eala defeated world No 3 Jessica Pegula 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the final at the WTA 500 tournament in Washington DC to secure her maiden […]<\/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-2587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587","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=2587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n
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