Alex Eala urged to make career-defining decision ASAP after being exposed in latest loss

Alex Eala is one of the most recognisable names in the current roster of female tennis players, despite yet to secure a major piece of silverware.

The Filipina star won the Washington Open, a WTA 500 event, in August, but since then her performances have flattered to deceive, and now in her most recent tournament, the 2026 Ningbo Open, she crashed out at the second-round stage.

Eala has now been urged by a legendary tennis coach to make a career-defining decision, due to being exposed in this most recent loss that saw her eliminated from the Ningbo Open.

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Alex Eala’s need for a career-defining decision

The 21-year-old lost in straight sets to world No 13 Diana Shnaider, but Eala was let down by her serve as she was broken in six of her 11 service games.

Eala appeared to truly struggle when serving, as she won only 38 of the 77 points played on her serve, registering a terrible 51% win rate off her first serve and 47% on her second serve.

This is not the first time Eala’s serve has been identified as a weakness, particularly by the legendary coach Rick Macci. He was famously a former coach of Serena and Venus Williams.

He reiterated his criticism of Eala’s serve, taking to social media to put his thoughts across to the public.

Macci said: “Her serve in the off-season can be rewired 100% with a science-based biomechanical approach brick by brick. She needs to go deep under the hood as right now everything is misunderstood.

“It is not the toss or power position or her legs on and on. The serve seen at 400 frames a second is 100% off, as the racket entry is already in and on the other side of her body creating all the symptoms most see.

“If her team wants to totally flip the script and go into the lab and make the lefty liability lollipop into a Filipino Flame, this one surgical decision will change her career and Game.”

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Alex Eala’s time to fix this weakness

The Filipina knows that she has several months until the next Grand Slam, when she will travel to Melbourne for the Australian Open.

Eala will be confident this period of time could be enough to fix this issue as she aims to make a proper assault on a major piece of silverware.

She has never gone further than the first round in the Australian Open, but her recent rise up the world rankings should allow her to end this poor performance at the Grand Slam.

Eala’s best performance at a Grand Slam came at Wimbledon this year as she reached the fourth round; however, she will be aiming to become a major player for silverware next season.

This will begin with improving her serve, and she can start to do this in training, with Macci being hopeful there are signs of improvement at her next competition.

Eala will compete at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo next week, where she will face 308th-ranked wildcard Mika Stojsavljevic in the opening round. So fans will be hopeful there is some immediate improvement.