ONCE a tennis prodigy herself, Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk is familiar with the pressures felt by Filipina teen sensation Alex Eala, whom she whipped 6-0, 6-1 late Wednesday night (Tuesday afternoon in Spain) in the first round of the Madrid Open women’s tennis singles.
Ranked No. 27 in the Women’s Tennis Association world ratings, Kostyuk was in a zone when she dispatched Eala, 19, ranked No. 70, in just 61 minutes of dominant play that proved too overwhelming for the Pinay star at the Grand Stand Arena of the ForoItalico Tennis Center.
“Kostyuk never faced a break point in the match, converted six of her 17 break points, and fired 19 winners to Eala’s three,” the report posted on the WTA website said shortly after the match.
“I feel sorry for them (tennis prodigies), to be honest,” said Kosytuk, 22, a former Australian Open champion who won her first WTA main-draw match at 15 years old, in an interview posted on tennis.com at the mixed zone after their initial encounter.
“It’s not that I had a bad experience. I’ve had, so far, an amazing career, and I wouldn’t ask for anything more because it’s really been an amazing journey. I just feel like, when you are young, you’re so undeveloped,” she recalled of her own experiences as a teen phenom.
“Your personality is still just building up, and everyone is labelling you something with your game, or your personality and everything. You’re in the middle of all this, whatever’s going on, and you’re trying to find yourself,” she added.
“It’s very easy to lose yourself and obviously, you don’t know what kind of people you should have around you. It’s normal. It’s a part of life and a part of growth, but doing that in a spotlight is always a bigger challenge, and it always has consequences,” Kostyuk explained.
The report pointed out that after the then rising Ukrainian netter reached the third round of the 2018 Australian Open, “Kostyuk struggled to crack the top 100 before ultimately coming into her own later on in her teens, reaching the second week of 2021 Roland Garros.
“She kicked off last season with a run to the Australian Open quarterfinals and reached her first WTA 1000 semifinal at the 2024 BNP Paribas Open.”
“I was thinking about it when I was playing my match today,” said Kostyuk in a reflective mood while she was competing against Eala.
“I could see she (Eala) was struggling, and she didn’t feel good in these conditions. We all have those days. I particularly didn’t play good in Rome or Madrid ever! Everything is new, so it’s a difficult time. I would not want to be young again, to be honest,” she said.
However, having been in the same shoes as her rival, Kostyuk disclosed that following the match and in an affirming gesture, she consoled Eala at the net, saying: ‘It’s a rough road, but you’ve got it. Just enjoy it.”
