Alexandra Eala’s wild run in Miami comes to an end in semifinals loss to Jessica Pegula

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Let this not be a one-off.

Let Alexandra Eala’s mind-bending run at this Miami Open not be something crazy and ridiculous, but something real.

Because even as she lost Thursday night in the semifinals to Jessica Pegula, who somehow outlasted the 19-year-old from the Philippines, 7-6(3) 5-7, 6-3, that is what Eala was during this tournament.

“I am so tired, so so tired,” said Pegula, who made her first final in Miami after making the semis the past two years. She will play Aryna Sabalenka, the world No. 1, in a rematch of last September’s U.S. Open final.

Eala nearly pulled off yet another hard-to-fathom upset Thursday night at Hard Rock Stadium, forcing Pegula, the world No. 4, to dig deep and climb out of holes all night before toppling Eala, a wild card ranked 140th in the world.

Eala was in command in the first set and the second before giving Pegula just enough of a grasp to yank the first away and almost the second, only to have Eala pull it back. That pushed the match to a three-set, nail-biting duel that Pegula finally prevailed in when Eala struck one final forehand into the net.

Back on serve

Alex Eala gets the break in the second!#MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/GzyfQIlKsP

— Tennis Channel (@TennisChannel) March 28, 2025

It came a day after Eala beat Iga Swiatek, a five-time Grand Slam winner and the dominant player of the last three years. That came three days after she beat Madison Keys, the Australian Open champion, which followed her beating Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion.

Eala’s triumphs marked another series of milestones in the journey of the young woman who left her family in the Philippines at 13 years old and moved to Spain to live, train and attend school at Rafael Nadal’s academy in Mallorca. She has been making tennis history for her country ever since, beginning with her winning the U.S. Open junior title three years ago.

Since then, Eala has been on a steady but deliberate climb through the rankings. She finished her first full season at 205 and her second at 158.

Her coach, Joan Bosch, who has known her since she moved to the Nadal Academy and has been working with her individually the past two years, said in an interview Thursday the goal this year is to finish in the top 100.

“I expected her to do it, but not like in March,” Bosch said.

Eala’s sudden success — earlier this month, she was losing in the second round of a third-tier tournament to Celine Naef in Slovakia — is almost impossible to explain. It’s not as though she suddenly learned how to blast her serve or adopted some new style of play.

Eala arrived in Miami, and something clicked. Every high-level pro experiences it at some point in their career. None of them can explain exactly why it happens.

“Tennis is an emotional sport,” Bosch said. “Watch the draw. There are many top-10 players that lost when they were not supposed to. On the other side, last month we lost against players that maybe, by ranking, you say we shouldn’t have lost to. In tennis, we know this happens. We know we can do good matches. We know we can do the not good matches, but what happened this week it’s incredible.”

It truly was. Match after match, Eala was a nearly impossible puzzle to solve.

She punishes opponents for missing first serves, stepping in and crushing their second balls from three feet inside the baseline. Bosch told her before every match to get ready to run, and she did, often taking off for the spot where she knew Pegula was going to hit. Her low flat strokes didn’t bounce off the hard courts as much as they skidded through them.

Then there were the drop shots, the drive volleys, the tricky, left-handed slice serve.

All of that has developed over time and come together as it never has before this week.

But there are other qualities that Bosch said Eala has had since she was a young girl.

“She has very good eyes,” said Bosch, who previously coached the world No. 1 Carlos Moyá and has been close to Nadal since he was 14. “She thinks fast. She’s aggressive. She’s very aggressive.”

Bosch paused for a moment because he wants to make sure he gets this point across. After all, aggressive does not mean simply swinging hard. In Eala, it also means taking her position and fighting with everything she has to keep it.

“She doesn’t lose the court,” he said. “She plays close, on the line.”

The combination nearly landed Eala in the finals of a tournament just below the level of a Grand Slam during a weeklong stretch that altered her career trajectory.

She was supposed to head to Spain to play a series of lower-tier tournaments next week. Now comes something else, a series of bigger tournaments that Eala will qualify for and a level to sustain — and maybe, with some luck, health and good fortune, something real.

(Photo: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)