Alex Eala led by a set at the Wuhan Open on Monday and still went out in the first round, beaten 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 by Chinese qualifier Shi Han. Watching on Sky Sports Tennis, Naomi Broady was not worried. Asked whether the 21-year-old’s energy was running out at the end of a long season, the former British player brushed the idea aside and offered a kinder reading: Eala, she said, is “still going out there with a bit of a free swing”.
Broady’s comments, reported by Tennis365, are half right. She is right about the energy. The free swing is harder to see in the scoreline.
What Broady said
“I think when you’re 21 you’re gifted with the energy levels aren’t you?” Broady said. “I think she’ll still be taking it in her stride. I think with Eala as well, she’s probably felt that this is her level and rightly so. I don’t think she feels that she’s playing above where she should be.”
Her argument rests on two points. The first is the calendar: Eala has “not really got much to defend until January of next year”, so her ranking is not under threat. The second is the crowd: Broady noted this was one of the first matches Eala had played all year without the home support she usually draws. “That in itself adds so much energy to you as well.”
The pattern Broady skipped
Energy is the wrong explanation, and Broady is right to dismiss it. A player running on empty fades from the start. Eala did the opposite. She edged a tight first set, winning a 12-minute ninth game at 4-4 and sealing the set with a crosscourt backhand winner, according to GMA News. Then, from 3-2 up in the second set, she lost seven games in a row.
That is not a one-off. At the Singapore Open a few weeks earlier, Eala won the first set against Tatiana Prozorova and lost 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, GMA reports. Twice in a matter of weeks, Eala has been a set up and unable to finish. A player swinging free does not keep losing from in front. A player tightening up does.
Shi, ranked outside the top 200, played like someone with nothing to lose. She closed the match with back-to-back aces at the business end of the third set and recorded the first top-20 win of her career. That is what a free swing looks like, and on Monday it belonged to the qualifier.
Why the label matters
Our read: the summer changed Eala’s job. After a Wimbledon fourth-round run and her first title in Washington, she arrived in Wuhan ranked No. 19 in the world and seeded 13th. That brings a different kind of match, one where she is expected to win and the opponent is the one with nothing to lose. Broady’s own point about the missing home crowd supports this. If Eala needs the noise to carry her through the tight moments, the issue is how she handles pressure, not how much energy she has left.
Broady is right about one thing that matters for the rankings: with little to defend before January, a slump now costs her little in the rankings. Our guide to how tennis rankings work explains why points dropping off the calendar matter as much as points won.
Our verdict
Broady has diagnosed what is not wrong, which is useful, and then been generous about what is. Eala is not tired, and she is not playing above herself. She is losing matches she is winning, and the fix is in the third set, not the fitness room. Her next singles chance is the Hong Kong Open in early November, likely her last tournament of the year. If she gets a set up there and closes it out, Broady’s reading will look right. If she goes down from a set up again, it will be a pattern.
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Sources: Tennis365, Sky Sports, GMA News.
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