The defending champion losing in the first round of Wimbledon is vanishingly rare. Until Marketa Vondrousova crumbled in her opener last year, earning an unwanted place in the history books, it hadn’t been done – on the women’s side – since Steffi Graf had a campaign to forget in 1994.
But a day after Carlos Alcaraz required four-and-a-half hours and five sets to see off Italian veteran Fabio Fognini, the “potential upset” alarm bells rang once more as women’s defending champion Barbora Krejcikova found herself wilting in the southwest London heat against an inspired Alexandra Eala. Having already made history and broken records for the Philippines, Eala, on her debut at Wimbledon, fancied writing another chapter, before ultimately succumbing 6-3, 2-6, 1-6.
Tennis crowds – and Wimbledon in particular – love a plucky underdog. The irony here is that 56th-ranked Eala wasn’t really an underdog, having shot up the rankings and proven herself equal to the big stage.
The 20-year-old is no stranger to a giant-killing: she beat three top-10 players en route to a maiden WTA 1000 semi-final in Miami earlier this year, including that instantly memorable, superb victory over Iga Swiatek.
In fact, Wimbledon’s win predictor gave her a narrow edge over Krejcikova. What should have been a huge gulf between an exciting youngster and an established player, the defending champion, was instead a much more level battlefield. Krejcikova has played just six matches this year after a back injury derailed the early part of her season, and no sooner was she back, reaching the quarter-finals at Eastbourne, than a thigh injury forced her to pull out.
She came into Wimbledon with a huge question mark hanging over her. Seeing Eala’s name in the draw on Friday was probably not what she was after.
It was Krejcikova who struck first in an error-strewn first set, sealing a break with an inch-perfect lob over the youngster’s head that just kissed the baseline. But it was Eala, on her Wimbledon debut, who ultimately pulled ahead, scrapping back each time she fell down a break under the blazing sunshine on Centre Court.
The arena, the occasion: neither seemed to faze her as she took advantage of poor serving from the defending champion, who hit five double faults in the opening set and struggled to control her forehand.
At 3-2 Krejcikova followed an ace with a double fault and as her game broke down, Eala upped the intensity, firing down two winners to break, and pull away with the first set. Krejcikova earned an immediate chance to break back, but a succession of errors saw it slip away.
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Centre Court didn’t seem to mind the scrappiness of the encounter, cheering on Eala as she earned a set point on Krejcikova’s serve, with the Czech seventh seed eventually finding her first serve to cling onto the hold. But the volume kicks up another notch as Eala sent a forehand fizzing cross-court for set point on her own serve, and sealed it with a rare ace.
It looked like the Filipino might run away with a stunning upset, but Krejcikova – a largely muted presence on court – looked undaunted. She wrestled back momentum and quietened the crowd with a hold to love to start the second set, and having rediscovered both her serve and her forehand, the second set was one-way traffic. She broke to 15 and came back from 15-40 down to hold, securing a double break with a winner down the line.
Suddenly painting the lines and covering every inch of the court, the Czech was in the ascendancy. Things went haywire as Eala, swinging with greater freedom, broke as Krejcikova served for the set, but the youngster continued to leak errors and a shot blasted wide handed over the set.
The stakes heightened in the one-set shootout, both players cut more animated figures, willing themselves onto the finish line. Krejcikova roared with relief as she held after a difficult first service game, and that set the tone. Eala skewed a sitter of a volley wide to hand over the crucial break for 2-0, and Krejcikova began to move through the gears, forcing yet more errors from her young opponent.
Ultimately experience and guile – this is Krejcikova’s ninth Wimbledon – triumphed over youthful enthusiasm. Eala never lost her belief, with nearly every game going to deuce, but couldn’t find a way through the Czech’s superior hitting. A backhand winner down the line and an accompanying roar sealed the victory for the defending champion – and staved off an unwanted footnote in history.
Krejcikova said: “Very happy, today was the day where I was really mentally there. I was fighting for every single ball and the match turned around.” She had spoken in the build-up to the match about soaking in the surroundings of Wimbledon as defending champion, and added: “I really enjoyed the walk from the locker room down the stairs in front of the door to the court. When it opened, it was just a very beautiful and very joyful experience. This was really something that I was looking forward to since last year.”
Eala echoed the 17th seed’s words – Krejcikova called it the “temple of tennis” – and reflected on a positive debut. Her family watched her push the reigning champion hard, and she said: “They would go see me in the courts in the Philippines for my matches where the courts are cracked, you know, there’s holes in the net, the fences are nonexistent. To come here to this, like the Vatican of all courts, it’s like my dream court.”
Early on Court 2 – the “graveyard of champions” – Jessica Pegula set the tone for a day of upsets, as the third seed lost to a sublime Elisabeth Cocciaretto 6-2, 6-3 in just 58 minutes.
The American won the warm-up tournament in Bad Homberg last week, defeating Iga Swiatek for a maiden grass-court title, and may have had something of a hangover from playing so close to the start of Wimbledon. Her first-round exit continues an indifferent record in SW19, having only made the second week once in six attempts, when she reached the quarter-finals in 2023.
Fifth seed Zheng Qinwen suffered a similar fate later on Court 3, falling in straight sets to Olympic mixed doubles champion Katerina Siniakova, marking her third first-round exit in a row at Wimbledon.
