‘I want to be Eala’: Philippine sensation sparks tennis boom at home

MANILA: On a Manila court made of crushed seashells, an earnest four-year-old sends a forehand sailing wide — one of dozens of kids aiming to follow in the footsteps of the Philippines’ first homegrown tennis sensation, Alexandra Eala.
The 21-year-old’s rise has sparked a rush of interest in a sport typically seen as the preserve of the elite in a country best known for its love of basketball, boxing and cockfighting.
Racquet sales are up and scoring one of the few available playing venues has become next to impossible as parents cram their pre-schoolers onto practice courts.
“Apart from just bringing in people to watch, she’s actually (got) people to play,” Philippine Tennis Association (PhilTA) executive director Tonette Mendoza told AFP.
“Maybe the parents of these kids, they’re thinking: Hey, if we do this, maybe they can be the next Alex,” she said.
A now-famous photo of Eala diving flat out for a ball at Wimbledon’s Center Court was all it took to convince nine-year-old Mayumi Stevens.
“I felt like, wow, that’s going to be me,” Stevens told AFP as she waited to train alongside older pre-teens at the Alabang Tennis Academy in an exclusive Manila suburb.
“I want to be Eala when I grow up.”
‘Onto the bandwagon’
French sporting goods retailer Decathlon is among the companies riding the Eala wave in the Philippines, busily reworking its store displays and social media after seeing sales of beginner racquets spike 66 percent in the past year.
“We really had to jump onto the bandwagon … creating content that’s very relatable, that’s very timely for whatever’s happening with Alex right now,” partnerships and communications manager Vince Roque told AFP.
PhilTA estimates there are fewer than 1,000 tennis courts in the