👀 “COULD THIS BE THE TURNING POINT?” — Emma Raducanu Could Follow Alex Eala’s Surprising Blueprint to Climb Back to the Top, But One Crucial Step Could Decide Everything
Alex Eala is set to finish 2026 as one of the biggest stars in women’s tennis, yet roll the clock back to this time last year and she was operating at a very different level.
The Filipina star made a big breakthrough when she reached the semi-finals at the 2025 Miami Open in a run that included a win against Iga Swiatek.
Those performances alerted the tennis world to Eala’s potential, but the ranking points she collected over the course of 2025 saw her sitting outside the top 50 of the WTA Rankings a year ago.
That meant she did not qualify to play in the WTA Tour’s marquee events, including the two WTA 1000 tournaments that take place in Beijing and Wuhan at this stage of the tennis season.
Eala lost her opening match in qualifying in Wuhan last year, but she was building her career steadily despite not performing on the biggest stages.
Eala showed good form playing in the lower-grade WTA 125 tournaments in Jingshan and Suzhou this time last year and she also played in additional WTA 250 tournaments in China, Japan and Hong Kong.
That gave Eala a platform to launch into her breakthrough 2026 season and if former US Open champion Emma Raducanu is looking for a blueprint on what she will do next in her career, she could look to the Filipina for some inspiration.
Raducanu shot to global fame when she won the US Open five years and since then, she has been fortunate to get a chance to play in most of the game’s biggest tournaments when she has been fit enough to get on court.
Wild cards have been forthcoming for the 23-year-old Brit, with her status as a Grand Slam champion helping her to secure entry into draws when her ranking did not earn her entry.
After being forced to sit out the last few months due to a stress fracture in her foot she sustained during her run to the final of the WTA 500 tournament at the Queen’s Club in June, Raduancu is set to face a tough road back to the top with her ranking slide down to No 100.
She will soon slip out of the automatic entry position for Grand Slam tournaments and would need to rely on wild cards to get into WTA 1000 events.
Those might not come her way so readily given her lack of success on the WTA Tour over the last five years, with new names emerging as future stars of the game as Raducanu has dropped off the radar.
There have been suggestions that she has been reluctant to play in lower ranking tournaments or enter qualifying for top tier events, but that was not a problem for Eala a year ago and Raducanu needs to consider that option now.
While she could still return to action with a protected ranking entry at the WTA 1000 tournament in Wuhan next month, Raducanu will only have the chance to use that ranking in selected events and it may be wasted if she tries to return at the highest level in her latest comeback.
What she could do is look at the success Eala has enjoyed over the last few months and aim to match it by this time next year.
That could involve edging back into competition against lower-ranked opponents in WTA 250 or WTA 125 tournaments, with plenty of options available for Raducanu over the next couple of months.
It may be that she opts to take the rest of 2026 off and focus on playing at the Australian Open in January, but Raducanu is believed to have been back in training for some time and she would be wise to consider testing herself in match conditions.
Her sliding ranking might not be boosted by playing in lower level events, but her confidence and match sharpness could be enhanced and that could be hugely beneficial heading into what is likely to be a make-or-break year for a player who might not want to stay in the game for too much longer if she can’t maintain her fitness or play in the sport’s biggest tournaments
