[Inside the Newsroom] Alex Eala frenzy: When tennis feels like basketball
When Alex Eala started hitting international headlines, the raucous Filipino fans became as much a part of the spectacle as her giant-slaying ways.
Just days after Eala captured her first WTA Tour title before a capacity crowd in Washington, the 21-year-old Filipina ace packed the stands again in Toronto, with tournament organizers noting how tickets in her opening match sold out in 30 minutes, and how they had to move it from the Grandstand to the bigger Centre Court of the Sobeys Stadium.
“Our Grandstand court is 2,800 seats. We can’t put her on there because she probably sold upwards of 5,000 tickets,” tournament director Karl Hale said.
Come match day, the fans made Toronto feel like a home court, with Philippine flags all around and the boisterous cheers making it less like a tennis event and more like a basketball game.
“Parang Ginebra lang (It’s just like a Ginebra game),” someone joked online, alluding to how the pro basketball team has long been Philippine sport’s crowd darling.
Like the Ginebra diehards, Eala fans can be loud, wildly cheering not just the Filipino’s every point, but also her opponent’s errors.
This defies, though, one of tennis’ unwritten rules: fans can’t distract the players, hence the sport’s polite cheers and decorous silence during rallies.
And here lies the split among the media, as well as longtime tennis aficionados. While some feel embarrassed by Filipino supporters’ lack of tennis etiquette in international matches, others relish the atmosphere and rumble of the arena filled with fans discovering the excitement of the sport for the first time.
For Eala, however, it’s just all love. After winning her first match in Toronto, she even made sure to address them in the vernacular.
“Linggo-lingo ko kayong nakikita, sinusuporta ako. Linggo-linggo kong nakikita kung gaano ’nyo kamahal ang kapwa ’nyong Pinoy, kaya proud na proud akong maging Pinoy. Salamat, mga kababayan.”
(I see you supporting me week after week. And, week after week, I see how much you love your fellow Filipino, and that makes me incredibly proud to be Filipino. Thank you, my fellow Filipinos.)
“Thank you to everyone who’s here supporting tennis and creating atmospheres like this,” Eala added. “It’s really the pleasure of my life to experience these things.”
The New York Times once wrote how some elite players hope tennis will be more like “every other sport, in which self-expression, celebration and trash talk are welcomed,” as some fans really do not understand “why they have to behave like they are at a funeral.”
The Eala on-and-off-court frenzy may not make sense to a tennis purist, and, as one Chinese sports fan puts it, even the Filipina player herself “makes no scientific sense.”
“She isn’t tall, isn’t fast, lacks power, and comes from an obscure Asian island nation,” the Chinese social media post said in a report by the South China Morning Post after Eala’s unbelievable title run in Washington, where she stunned Olympic and Asian Games champion Zheng Qinwen, defending champion Leylah Fernandez, world No. 10 Elina Svitolina, four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, and world No. 3 Jessica Pegula.
The Chinese comment may have triggered some, but as Eala rises, so do the Filipino global fans — whether one likes them or not.
During Eala’s brief visit to Manila last July — just right after her historic Wimbledon run, where she became the first Filipino to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam singles tournament — reporter Delfin Dioquino recounted how fans of all ages “patiently waited for hours just to get an up-close look” of the tennis star in a packed mall event.
He described Eala’s homecoming as “proof that she is no longer just an ordinary athlete but a cultural figure in her own right.“
Buoyed by her fervent fans, Eala changed the game in many ways over the past months — a true disruptor, just like other sports greats. – Rappler.com
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