New milestone for Eala

MANILA, Philippines — Alex Eala yesterday rose to No. 30 in the world, officially securing a historic Wimbledon seed in the process.

Eala improved five spots from No. 35 last week, thanks to a stellar Final Four finish in the WTA500 Berlin Tennis Open on grass, to become the first seeded Filipina ever in any Grand Slam main draw.

She moved up to No. 29 seed in the provisional draw released by Wimbledon yesterday as world No. 9 Victoria Mboko of Canada, her listed partner in the French Open last May, withdrew due to a left knee injury.

The official draw for Wimbledon that will run from June 29 to July 12 in London is set this weekend.

Only the Top 32 players in the latest WTA rankings get a seed in the queen of grass tournaments, thus giving Eala – whose career-best ranking is at No. 29 last March – a first-round bye after multiple early exits in the past including a Round of 128 elimination at Roland Garros.

And Eala gets to refine her bearings once more with a juggling act in the WTA Bad Homburg Open in Germany.

Youth firepower mixes with legendary pedigree as the rising star Eala, 21, and the grizzled American great Venus Williams, 46, join forces against the qualifier duo of Catherine Harrison of the United States and Alexandra Osborne of Australia.

Eala and the seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams were to play Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and En-Shuo Liang of Chinese Taipei. But the latter withdrew due to an injury to give way for the Harrison-Osborne pair from the qualifying round.

Before that, Eala was to slug it out against world No. 24 Elise Mertens of Belgium in the singles with hopes of avenging her 6-2, 6-1 defeat in Round 1 of the Madrid Open.

Baad Homburg serves as Eala’s final warmup for the Wimbledon.

Serena plays singles at age 44

It’s been talked about ever since Serena Williams announced nearly three weeks ago that she was returning to professional tennis after almost four years away from the sport.

Still, seeing the single-sentence announcement from The All England Club that the 23-time Grand Slam champion will play singles at Wimbledon was stunning nonetheless.

“Serena Williams (USA) receives the final ladies’ singles wild card,” read the key line in Sunday’s announcement, which was issued eight days before the grass-court Grand Slam begins.

At age 44, Williams will actually play both singles and doubles at Wimbledon after already accepting a wild card for the doubles competition with older sister Venus.

“This is not a drill,” Wimbledon said on its social media accounts Sunday.