Tennis

Fil-Aussie tennis star Cabrera hopes to play doubles with Alex Eala

Beatrice Go

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Fil-Aussie tennis star Cabrera hopes to play doubles with Alex Eala

GRAND SLAM ACTION. Lizette Cabrera qualifies for the 2021 Australian Open via a wildcard berth.

Photo from Lizette Cabrera's Instagram

Filipina-Australian Lizette Cabrera is one of the top tennis players following Alex Eala's tennis career

The Philippines’ teen tennis sensation Alex Eala got another admirer all the way from Australia.

Filipina-Australian professional tennis player Lizette Cabrera has been following the 15-year-old’s career and even hopes to play doubles together with her someday.

“I have been following her progress. I think she’s an amazing young player. And she’s definitely going to do some damage when she plays more and more matches on the tour,” said Cabrera.

“Hopefully one day we’ll get to play doubles together or something like that and kind of showcase the Filipinos and kind of what we bring to the table.”

In the recently concluded Australian Open, Cabrera partnered with Maddison Inglis in the women’s doubles event, where she nailed her first Grand Slam 2nd round berth.

Eala, meanwhile, already scored a breakthrough Grand Slam title in the 2020 Australian Open girls doubles tournament with Indonesian partner Priska Nugroho.

As world No. 141, Cabrera aims for a top 100 berth in the Women’s Tennis Association rankings. She also believes that Eala is on the right track as a budding world tennis star.

“She’s on an amazing track, being able to train at Rafa Nadal’s academy, I’m sure she’s getting amazing help there, and you know she’s already ranked No. 700 and she’s only 15. She can only really go up from here,” said 23-year-old Cabrera.

“I think my advice to her would be just focus on your own journey, and to make sure you surround yourself with the right people to push you, to have a good team,” Cabrera added.

“Enjoy it because you just never know when your breakthrough is going to come.”

Cabrera made it to the 2021 Australian Open via a wildcard berth and faced Eala’s tennis idol Simona Halep in the opening round of the women’s singles event.

Though Halep overpowered her in straight sets, Cabrera was just happy to have experienced sizing up against the current world No. 3 Halep.

“It was good seeing how my tennis kind of stacked up against the [then-] world No. 2. And, yeah, it was a really good learning experience for me and I definitely want to be back,” said Cabrera, who set foot in Rod Laver Arena for the first time.

Cabrera started playing tennis at the age of 4. She was exposed to a variety of sports such as golf and interschool sports, but decided to focus on tennis at the age of 9.

In order to fund Cabrera’s tennis career, her parents, Ronnie from Pampanga and Dolly from Basilan – who moved to Australia in their early 20s – worked in a slaughterhouse.

Her father passed away last September due to strep throat. – Rappler.com

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Beatrice Go

More commonly known as Bee, Beatrice Go is a multimedia sports reporter for Rappler, who covers Philippine sports governance, national teams, football, and the UAAP. Stay tuned for her news and features on Philippine sports and videos like the Rappler Athlete’s Corner and Rappler Sports Timeout.