REPEAT or revenge?
These will be the underlying themes in the rematch between fast-rising Filipino netter Alex Eala and world No. 2 and defending champion Iga Swiatek of Poland today in the women’s singles second round of the Mutua Madrid Open at Caja Magica in Madrid, Spain.
They are set to tangle at 8:10 p.m. (2:10 p.m. in Spain) in front of an expected banner crowd eager to see if the result will be the same or different than their initial encounter.
In a near-storybook run while competing as a wild card entry, Eala claimed her biggest scalp at the Center Court of the Hard Rock Tennis Stadium with a shocking 6-2, 7-5 quarterfinal triumph in the Miami Open over the fancied Polish player, a five-time Grand Slam champion, virtually a month ago.
That historic upset was largely responsible for the Pinay southpaw entering the top 100 of the Women’s Tennis Association world ratings, where she now sits at No. 72.
“I wasn’t playing my best game and I felt my forehand collapse and I was uncomfortable. She (Eala) has pretty loosened up and she went for it. She fell into a nice rhythm and that helped her. So she deserves to win the match,” said Swiatek of the setback then.
But she added that “I don’t think about losses too long. There are other things that I have and I am happy that I am going to play on clay. I don’t know what is going to happen but I am going to work hard (for the next tournaments) for sure.”
Despite the pressure of repeating over her highly-regarded foe, Eala is taking everything in stride, saying in an interview the other day that “now that the dust has settled, I try not to think about Miami so much.
“I definitely think that each match is a different story. Even if it’s against the same player every time — doesn’t matter if I play her (Swiatek) at the same time next year in Miami or in Madrid next year, it’s going to be a different story than the last one.”
While the Filipina was superior playing on the Miami Open hard courts, Swiatek will be very much in her element on clay and will be keen on settling the score against only the third player below the WTA’s top 100 who had beaten her in a major tournament.
Eala needs to bring her A game similar to her 6-2, 6-3 ouster of Bulgarian world No. 63 Viktoriya Tomova in the opening round last Tuesday if she is to stand a chance of repeating in her battle royale against her vengeful Polish rival.
The odds, indeed, are pretty daunting for the left-hander, considering that Swiatek has the second-highest winning percentage among players with five-plus matches in the event (13-2, .867) behind American great Serena Williams (20-3, .870), according to the WTA website.
She also boasts a 25-2 win-loss record on clay over the past 12 months, securing three tournament victories.
Swiatek, however, is still searching for her first championship of the 2025 season and fell in the quarterfinals of Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany the previous week to Latvian Jelana Ostapenko, who went on to win the title.
If Eala, a 1-4 underdog by bookmakers entering the match, can muster the same poise and all-around consistency she showed in her last outing, the hopes of her adoring fans of duplicating her Miami Open win won’t be farfetched.
This is the third time that the two players have crossed paths, with Swiatek, fresh from her third French Open triumph, gracing Eala’s graduation ceremony at the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy in Mallorca, Spain in 2023.
