FILIPINO tennis ace Alexandra “Alex” Eala said there’s nothing too serious about her right ankle which she tweaked in the second set of her third-round match against American Caty McNally at the WTA 1000 National Bank Open Friday night in Toronto (Saturday morning in Manila).
Eala, who took a medical timeout after the fifth game of the second set for ankle treatment, defeated McNally in the grueling two-hour and 39-minute battle, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.
“I kind of rolled my ankle in that second set. Like, I hit the forehand, and I landed kind of wrong. I called the physio. I think I was a little, I was like, Oh, I don’t know what happened, because it happened so fast. But luckily there’s nothing wrong with it, and it was no serious problems,” said Eala in the post-match presser.
World No. 20 Eala is confident she could recover perfectly in time for her fourth-round match against No. 14 Belinda Bencic on Monday.
“Today was physically, it pushed me a lot. I have a lot of matches in the bag. But that goes for good and bad. I think this is also a learning process,” said Eala.
“We’re athletes. So that kind of physical is, you know, it’s like a huge part of our job. I think I have a great team who is going to help me recover, and I have high hopes for the rest of the tournament.” After tweaking her right ankle, Eala labored a bit but still went on to serve for the match, which she could not hold as McNally eventually pushed the game to a decider.
Eala said she fed off the Filipino crowd’s energy to get to the finish line, even urging them on to cheer louder after scoring a point she thought was pretty spectacular.
“I think, I mean, in that point specifically, I think I wanted to kind of, like, I was hyped, so I wanted to kind of share that with the crowd. Obviously, I also try to take in their energy,” said Eala.
“I think it was a pretty good point. I don’t remember quite so well. Yeah, normally I try to just be indifferent and kind of like, you know. But I think that point was specifically, I’m sorry, I can’t find the word. I, yeah, I wanted that point.”
