Thanks to Eala, PH tennis has momentum. Let it not go to waste

March 31 ------ ALEX Eala has just gifted the country with a series of wins for the ages. But her greatest gift would be for our sports officials and patrons to ride the momentum she created and use it to bring tennis back and start discovering more Ealas.

No athlete since Hidilyn Diaz of weightlifting and Carlos Yulo of gymnastics, both Olympic gold-medal winners, has captured the national imagination like Eala has. She has no Olympic medal around her neck, but her string of successes — at the Miami Open, four wins, with three of them against Grand Slam champions — that played out over several days has had such an impact on Filipinos that the frenetic social media have not stopped extolling her.

With the iron still hot, people who love the game are now being asked to give it their wholehearted support. “First and foremost is more tournaments,” says Andy Maglipon, program director of the Philippine Tennis Academy. “And to have more tournaments, we should establish a professional tour.”

He says the absence of a tour, such as that which golf has, is the biggest stumbling block in developing more players and the biggest reason why there is no grassroots movement in tennis. Over the years, he notes, the only big professional tennis tournament in the country has been the PCA Open. Although there have been firms like Palawan and Cebuana Lhuillier sponsoring events, he says tennis cannot survive on one or two pro events.

Tennis has to become a lucrative career, first locally, and then internationally, for Filipino tennis players. Sadly, he sees that most corporate funds go to basketball, and lately, volleyball, leaving not only tennis but many other sports like badminton, swimming, track and field, and more, fighting for crumbs. “The juniors are okay, and college, too,” says Maglipon, once an outstanding junior tennis player himself. “But after graduating from college, there’s nowhere the athletes can go.”

Lack of opportunities

He adds, “After college, many of them retreat to corporate jobs and others just become tennis instructors because there are no tournaments with prizes to play.” He adds that even tennis prizes have not grown with inflation. “They are, I think, the same as ten, twenty years ago,” he says with a small laugh.

Add to that how today many tennis courts have been abandoned and converted to pickleball courts, and the tennis woes keep coming.

He acknowledges that very few can follow the path of Eala. The 19-year-old was a prodigy who shone in the juniors and was eventually noticed by the Rafa Nadal Academy in Spain. She was invited to attend the academy and given a scholarship at 13 years old.

Eala doesn't disappoint

Although she comes from a well-off family, Eala would have drained her family’s resources had she decided to become a walk-in student and trainee at the Nadal academy where, according to entry requirements, a week’s stay costs 2,000 Euros (about P124,000). Thankfully, Eala did not disappoint. She showed the result of many years of training and dedication to the sport by making it to the semifinals of the French Open juniors in 2020 and then won the US Open Juniors in 2022.

The 5-foot-9 left-hander had also become a doubles specialist along the way, winning the Australian Open juniors double crown in 2020 and in 2021, added the French Open doubles title. From there, she went on to turn pro and competed in various low-level WTA events with results both good and bad. But she plodded on until she produced this past week's stunning feat.

No athlete in recent years have had the same impact as Eala had. She inspired a nation, made the country proud, and perhaps sent not a few to dig into their cellars and bodegas to retrieve dust-covered and abandoned tennis racquets. Surely, there is momentum for Philippine tennis. Don’t let this go to waste.

Source: spin.ph