Alex Eala reveals closest friends on the WTA Tour after becoming more social

Alexandra Eala is through to the fourth round of Indian Wells after Coco Gauff retired early in the second set of their third-round clash due to injury.

Eala was leading 6-2, 2-0 when Gauff stopped play due to an arm injury.

This was the second meeting between the two in recent months, with Gauff having come out on top at the Dubai Tennis Championships earlier this year.

With this result, Eala continues to build her reputation as one of the top young talents on the WTA Tour, joining names like Victoria Mboko and Mirra Andreeva.

Following her Sunday match against Gauff, the 20-year-old spoke about the young stars on the WTA Tour whom she considers her closest friends.

Alex Eala shares which WTA players she is closest to

After the match, Eala spoke with the Tennis Channel and explained: “I think this year one of my resolutions, and maybe even before that, was to try and be more social and come out of my shell a bit.

“I am happy to say that I have built a lot of really great friendships on Tour. This week I played with Iva Jovic, we are really good friends. She is super good fun.

“Others that I’m really good friends, one of my best friends not just on Tour but in life, is Zeynep [Somnez]. I have grown really close with her. Also Victoria Mboko.

“I am surrounded by so many amazing women. Eva Lys, Iva Jovic. And also that half Filipinos being on tour, I have really bonded with them.

“So I am really grateful I am able to build these sort of friendships because we can understand each other. It’s just girlhood.”

So far this season, Eala and Jovic have partnered in two matches on the WTA Tour.

They first played together at the ASB Classic earlier this year, making it all the way to the semi-finals before losing to Xu Yifan and Yang Zhaoxuan.

This week in Indian Wells did not go as well for them, as they fell in their opening match against Jelena Ostapenko and Hailey Baptiste.

Their history together goes back even further as they faced each other four years ago in doubles during the US Open Girls’ Doubles event.

Alex Eala and Mirra Andreeva’s 2022 US Open Girls’ doubles campaign

Back in 2022, Eala and Andreeva played together in the US Open Girls’ Doubles event, where they were seen as one of the teams to beat.

The two players, who now sit inside the top 30 in singles on the WTA Tour, went into the tournament as the fourth seeds.

They started off by comfortably beating American wildcards Iva Jovic and Shannon Lam 6-2, 6-2 in their opening match.

Next up would have been a second-round match against Carolina Kuhl and Ella Seidel, but Eala and Andreeva withdrew before that could happen. This gave their opponents a walkover into the quarter-finals.

Eala was also playing in singles at that tournament. She ended up going all the way to her only junior Grand Slam title after beating Lucie Havlíčková in straight sets.

On top of her singles success, she also has two junior Grand Slam doubles titles to her name, taking home trophies from both the 2020 Australian Open and 2021 French Open.

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