Alex Eala has been one of the sharpest performers on the tour lately, yet her serve remains the part of her game that draws the most attention. It is markedly slower than much of the WTA Tour, which has often left her leaning on the quality of her return to stay alive in matches.

That issue came up on a recent episode of Off Court with Greg, where Greg Rusedski said he would be keen to help Eala improve that side of her game. His assessment was direct, pointing to technical details he believes are holding the serve back.

“If I’m looking at her serve, I think her elbow position and throwing position need to get better, as well as the way she starts the motion, because there’s not enough tilt, in my opinion, especially with the front shoulder and the back shoulder,” said Rusedski about Eala’s serve.

He added that the setup is too rigid and explained why that matters for the motion and power production.

“So it’s too square. And when you’re square, it’s really hard. You’d never throw a ball like that. For me, that’s the first thing I’d work on, because if you can change that angle, which isn’t that difficult a thing to do, but it’s making it a habit that takes a little bit longer, then she can use the explosiveness of the elbow to throw and loosen up the wrist on the serve, which would definitely get her a few MPH.

“I’d love to have a crack at it. I don’t know if I’d ever be invited to do so. But during the offseason, that would be something I would be very interested in doing because if she gets the serve, it just opens up everything.”

Eala is currently working with Joan Bosch, whom she met at the Rafael Nadal Academy, while she has also been training recently with Toni Nadal.

Rusedski brings a coaching background of his own. After retiring in the mid-2000s, he worked as a development coach for the Lawn Tennis Association from 2007 to 2016, then became Great Britain Junior Davis Cup captain. He worked with Kyle Edmund and also spent time with Heather Watson and Johanna Konta. He had a brief spell with Victoria Azarenka between July and September 2024, and this year he also worked with Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard after his split with Francisco Roig.

Alexander Zverev has looked back on his 2026 Wimbledon final defeat to Jannik Sinner and explained why the loss left him “p***ed off” afterwards.

The German was beaten 6-7(7), 7-6(2), 6-3, 6-4 by the world No 1 in the championship match at the All England Club in July. It was a significant step for Zverev, who had never previously gone beyond the fourth round at Wimbledon before this year’s tournament.

The 29-year-old arrived in London trying to add a second straight Grand Slam title to his record after winning his first major at the 2026 French Open. Although the final ended in defeat, his level drew praise in a conversation with tennis icon John McEnroe that was shared by Outside the Ball on X/Twitter.

McEnroe said: “You won the French. You had not had a lot of success in Wimbledon, but you played great there. Assess the match with Jannik Sinner. I mean, I called the match, but I thought you played great. You know, tell me if you disagree. It was a highly competitive match.

“You were very aggressive, and maybe as aggressive [as] I’ve ever seen you play, certainly on that surface. I would think, all things considered, you had to be extremely happy about that result as well.”

Zverev did not hide his disappointment, even while acknowledging the importance of reaching the final. He said: “I was happy that I made it to the Wimbledon final, of course, but I was still, I was a little bit, you know, p***ed off that I lost the match, because I felt like the match got a little bit out of my hand, because I won the first set.

“I lost the second set in a tie break, and then I had break points in the third set to go up a break, and I haven’t lost my serve at all in that match until that moment, and I felt like I was right there, and I even felt like I was playing better than he was in that moment.

“And then I slipped… I slipped, and then my two bones in my knee hit each other, and then I struggled to serve after that. I couldn’t push off up anymore, which then, he started to return my serve a lot more.

“We were a lot more in the rallies on my serve, and he then ended up winning the third and fourth sets, but I still felt like that match, I could have won, and of course, winning Wimbledon is one of the biggest things in tennis.

“But again, I’m fine with it, because I feel like I’ll get another chance, and I’ll get another couple of chances, and if I continue doing the same thing, I will hopefully lift the trophy one day.”

Andy Roddick believes Iga Swiatek’s unexpected defeat at the 2026 US Open was driven by something beyond her tennis.

Swiatek went down 7-5, 6-3 to Zheng Qinwen, a 121st-ranked qualifier and former world No 4, in the fourth round of the hard-court major on Monday. The six-time Grand Slam champion had looked firmly in control after opening up a 5-0 lead in the first set, but the match swung sharply when she dropped the next seven games and failed to convert three set points on serve.

The former world No 1 now sits eighth in the rankings and has slipped to ninth in the Live WTA Rankings. By her own standards, it has been a challenging season, although she arrived in New York with encouraging momentum after winning the Canadian Open and reaching the semi-finals in Cincinnati.

On his Served podcast, Roddick offered a blunt reading of the loss. “Iga kind of fell apart a little bit. She said it. She was like, ‘I just started missing balls’,” said the 2003 US Open winner.

He went on to say: “You used to be able to bank on Iga. And listen, before I get into this criticism, I have an outsized amount of respect for what Iga has accomplished in her career. I am a fan of hers. I think she is criminally underreported on.

“And Iga, for the last two years, even with the Wimbledon title, the difference is that there have been inconsistencies, where she has patches in matches where the game goes off.

“And she looks at her box, and it’s a little panicked at times. And it is unpredictable, really. She’ll look great, she’ll look great, she’ll look great, and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Where did that come from?”

Roddick added: “Iga, we kind of have to figure that thing out, she had a good summer, obviously the win in Canada, but we judge her, she judges herself against her own shadow.

“She has six majors, dominant force in tennis, a multiple-time year-end number one. She’s probably going to be doing some searching.

“And it wasn’t the tennis going into this match. It wasn’t tennis-based. She’s been playing well for five weeks now. So, it is something else.

“But credit to Qinwen, good to see her back. You could see how much joy she had in that moment, going through qualies. She’s here for the real deal.”