Alex Eala’s main problem identified by Serena Williams’ ex-coach, ‘a lot of people don’t understand this’

Eala then captured her first tour-level title at the Washington Open, beating top three seeds Elina Svitolina, Naomi Osaka and Jessica Pegula in her campaign at the WTA 500 event. The triumph in Washington saw Eala crack the top 20, and as of today, she is ranked 17th in the world; a career-high.

At such a young age, this is only the beginning for Eala, but Serena Williams’ former coach, Rick Macci, speaking exclusively to The Tennis Gazette, pinpointed exactly what she needs to fix to compete for Grand Slam titles.

Rick Macci pinpoints the ‘liability’ in Alex Eala’s game

“She’s a great ball striker,” said Macci, who coached Serena and Venus Williams in their junior years. “She controls the centre of the court. She hits clean, flat groundstrokes. She gets angles from outer space with authority.

“That alone, that concept of how she plays, is going to have her in almost every match, because she has firepower and she plays the ball and not the person. And on the return of serve, she’s trying to take the racket out of your hand on the second serve. That alone makes her dangerous.

“That’s why she’s dropped a lot of top players first time out because she can hurt you. She’s playing authoritatively; she tries to dictate. And mentally, she’s pretty calm. So she has all that in her back pocket.

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“Now that being said, her serve is definitely a liability because it’s not connected correctly from the ground up. I’ve seen it many times. Me and my partner, Dr Brian Gordon, he has his PhD in biomechanics, and we’ve seen this at 400 frames a second. A lot of people don’t understand this because this is the number one problem, not just with her, but with most players on the WTA Tour, the leg drive doesn’t initiate the racket entry at the right time.

“The racket is already in the back and on the other side of the head before the legs start to go up. The leg should make the racket go in. She does it backwards, and then there are all these symptoms that occur. Listen, if you do 20 million of anything from age 10, it’s going to get better. But is it optimal? No. And a lot of people aren’t going to even understand what I’m talking about; even a lot of coaches. This is hard to see with the human eye. There has to be a complete rewiring.

“Sure, she’s going to have her moments in the sun. She’s lefty. You can slice it. You can do it all wrong and still hit five or 10 aces. You can hit it all wrong and still hit it 110 miles an hour. But on a regular basis, is it going to be like Rybakina or Sabalenka? No way, because it’s not done correctly, but it’s not her fault.

“Now, will she get someone who understands biomechanics and has a science-based understanding of the real culprit? Or are they just going to correct a symptom? And that’s kind of what people did for many years with Coco Gauff, and you can see how a biomechanist changed that whole thing. The same with Sabalenka; if you back the truck up many years ago, it was brutal. It was wrong.”

Both Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka have worked with biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan to fix issues they have experienced when serving, and the two stars have seen improvements.

Rick Macci says Alex Eala can win multiple Grand Slam

“If she corrects her serve, many Grand Slams are in the oven,” Macci said of Eala, who has just six wins at major tournaments across seven campaigns. Eala made her Grand Slam debut at the 2025 French Open, but is yet to make it past the quarterfinals at one of the four biggest events in tennis.

Macci continued: “Even if she doesn’t [fix her serve], her returns are so good, and she’s so good in the other areas, she could still win a Grand Slam, but life would be easier if she was getting free lunches on the serve, not just with unreturnables, but how it makes her feel because she gets more short balls.”

“You’re only as good as your weakest link, because at the top of the mountain, it’s all about greatness. How many boxes can you check? If you have one little speed bump or one little hiccup, that could stop you from reaching your full potential.

“But when we’re talking about muscle memory and reprogramming reflexes, it’s the hardest thing to do. That being said, the easiest to do is the serve, because you’re standing, it has nothing to do with your opponent.

“It’s not like a stroke where you’re making a modification or an adaptation. That’s a little trickier, but the serve is the easiest to rewire if you want to commit, but it has to be done from a science-based perspective.”

Eala will get her final campaign of the 2026 season underway on Tuesday at the Hong Kong Open, which marks the last stop of the tour before the year-end WTA Finals.

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