{"id":48452,"date":"2026-06-09T07:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/alex-ealas-birmingham-open-win-proves-her-game-is-still-growing\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T07:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:07:09","slug":"alex-ealas-birmingham-open-win-proves-her-game-is-still-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/alex-ealas-birmingham-open-win-proves-her-game-is-still-growing\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Eala’s Birmingham Open win proves her game is still growing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A year ago, Alex Eala left the court at the Birmingham Open after losing in the first round. On Sunday, she walked away as a champion.<\/p>\n

Eala struggled during the clay season and arrived in Birmingham without much momentum.<\/p>\n

She reached the round of 16 in Linz, but lost to Jelena Ostapenko 7-5, 6-4. In Stuttgart, she lost in the first round to Leila Fernandes 6-1, 6-4.<\/p>\n

Madrid lost 6-2, 6-1 to Elise Mertens in the second round, while Roma showed her best form of the season on clay before losing 6-4, 6-3 to world No. 2 Elena Rybakina in the third round.<\/p>\n

In Strasbourg, she suffered another early exit, losing 6-3, 5-7, 3-6 to qualifier Oleksandra Olnikova. At Roland Garros, he drew with close friend Iva Jovic and lost in the first round of the French Open 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n

But Glass provided a timely reset.<\/p>\n

Ila opened with a commanding 6-0, 6-2 victory over Priscilla Hong in Birmingham, followed by a close 6-2, 7-5 win against Alina Charaeva, who trailed 2-5 in the second set.<\/p>\n

In the quarterfinals, she defeated Manachaya Sawankeo 6-3, 6-2, controlling most of the match through early battles.In the semifinals, she had a tough match against Rebekah Masarova, and despite falling behind at 5-2 in the third set due to rain, she won 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.<\/p>\n

By the final, she had already been tested on all fronts, but her match against Nikola Bartunkova saw further challenges amid repeated postponements due to rain.<\/p>\n

The Czech won the first set 7-5 after a late break, then broke first in the second set to take a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

However, Ira reacted immediately.<\/p>\n

Once she broke back, she gradually began to control the baseline rally and take control with greater depth and sharper angles.<\/p>\n

The second set was a strong 6-3, but the third set was a close battle.<\/p>\n

Ila fought off an early break point to go up 1-2, but then broke to take a 5-3 lead. Bartunkova fought back to 5-5, but Ila broke again in the 11th game and then served out to win 5-7, 6-3, 7-5.<\/p>\n

This was Aira’s first win against Czech opponents in 14 games. This isn’t a statistic she talks about publicly, but it’s important in context. Czech players have long been a tough group for her to play against, and for a time it looked like Bartunkova would continue that trend. Instead, Eala closed the loop.<\/p>\n

Ira’s name is now on Birmingham’s list of champions alongside Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova, but she didn’t attach much importance to the company.<\/p>\n

“Of course, it’s a really beautiful sound,” Ira said. \u201cAll the names you mentioned are great players in the world of tennis and it is a great honor to be able to lift this trophy today.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, lifting this trophy does not mean I will join the ranks of the greats yet, so I am motivated to keep working and am grateful for the role this trophy has played in my journey.<\/p>\n

The win marks Ila’s second WTA 125 title following last year’s breakthrough in Guadalajara, and could earn her a career-high spot inside the top 35. But timing may be more important.<\/p>\n

After a frustrating clay swing, Birmingham offered something different – proof that her game is still growing.<\/p>\n

Eala will now compete in the WTA 500 HSBC Championship at Queen’s Club in London before heading to Wimbledon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago, Alex Eala left the court at the Birmingham Open after losing in the first round. On Sunday, she walked away as a champion. Eala struggled during the clay season and arrived in Birmingham without much momentum. She reached the round of 16 in Linz, but lost to Jelena Ostapenko 7-5, 6-4. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[345,2871,9334,300,2261,32,4532,24,30],"class_list":["post-48452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-alex","tag-birmingham","tag-ealas","tag-game","tag-growing","tag-open","tag-proves","tag-tennis","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}