Photo: TTV
A recipe for success on grass: serve brilliantly, return even better, and never let your opponent catch her breath.
It worked well for Alexandra Eala on Thursday at Eastbourne as she raced past Dayana Yastremska 6-1, 6-2 to reach her maiden grass-court semifinal.
“I think more than anything it’s just the mentality,” Eala said when asked what has been going well for her this week. “Of course against these great players in these tough conditions it can be hard to find the balance – that patience and the will to go for the ball – I think I did that well throughout the whole week.”
The 20-year-old played a smart match in the wind, hitting just four winners but keeping her unforced error count low at 10, as she broke Yastremska in each of her seven service games and won 57 of 94 points in the match.
Last week’s Nottingham runner-up Yastremska, ranked 42, hit 10 winners but committed 24 unforced errors. 74th-ranked Eala improves to 8-5 on the year and 3-0 on grass. She will be making her Wimbledon debut next week.
“I’m only 20 but it’s been a long road already,” said Eala, who burst onto the scene by reaching the Miami Open semifinals earlier this year. “I have a lot of experience with getting to know myself. I learned so much from that week. A lot about self-belief and how to handle my emotions when things are going really well, as well as when things are going really bad – to focus on hope when you’re doing bad and keep yourself humble when you are doing well, it’s part of that balance.”
Eala, who lost in the first round on her Roland-Garros debut, appears to be more comfortable on the grass than she is on the clay. She reached the quarterfinals at 125k Ilkley then qualified for Nottingham last week. In Eastbourne she defeated Lucia Bronzetti and Jelena Ostapenko (via retirement in the third set), for her first two career grass-court wins.
She will face Varvara Gracheva in the semifinals on Friday.
In other action on Thursday in Eastbourne, 19-year-old Maya Joint reached her third semifinal of the season with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Anna Blinkova.