Alex Eala may be riding a wave of momentum after claiming her first WTA Tour title at the Washington Open and cracking the top 20, but legendary coach Rick Macci is pumping the brakes on any notion that her serve can be quickly patched up.
Macci, who has coached five players to the world No. 1 ranking including Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Andy Roddick, Maria Sharapova, and Jennifer Capriati, took to Instagram this week with a pointed assessment. He believes Eala was "incorrectly" taught her serve as a junior and that the technical issues run far too deep for a mid-season fix. In his words, any minor adjustment right now is "a band-aid" rather than a real solution.
The 71-year-old coach specifically identified the problem as timing: Eala's leg drive does not initiate racquet entry at the proper moment. He described what is needed as "heavy-duty, in-depth reconstructive surgery" involving biomechanical science, making meaningful change before the off-season "almost impossible."
When some fans and commentators drew comparisons between Eala's flowing motion and Roger Federer's famously smooth delivery, Macci shut that down plainly. Without proper leg-drive timing, he argued, the mechanics will never truly resemble Federer's, no matter how many repetitions she puts in.
The critique arrives in context. Eala's serve currently sits outside the top 50 on the WTA Tour for aces and both first- and second-serve winning percentages, a statistical gap that analysts have flagged as a barrier to Grand Slam contention. Macci himself has acknowledged her upside, calling her groundstrokes "lethal" and dubbing her the "Philippine Machine."
All attention now turns to her Cincinnati Open campaign as a warm-up to the US Open. TennisDraw users have been heavily backing Eala to make a deep run through the draw in Cincinnati.
