I have always been a sports fan, although there were times I shirked from the responsibilities attached to it. One time, my good friend, former sports ed Jobannie Tabada, approached me and proposed something radical. Jobannie was, at that time, preparing to leave for the United Arab Emirate and was looking for somebody to take over the SunStar Cebu sports desk. He suggested my name even though I was the news editor at that time. I had a feeling that our editor-in-chief, Pachico A. Seares, gave Jobannie the go signal to try to convince me to accept the job. Or why would Jobannie be so bold as to do the recruiting inside the newsroom?
I eventually stuck to the news desk thinking that I was more at home there. “Accepting the proposal would mean I would be straying far from my original intention, which was to follow political developments,” I told Jobannie. When I shifted courses in college, it was, after all, from chemical engineering to political science, I noted.
But before I stray further away from my original topic, I would say that, indeed, change is the only permanent thing in this world. That is true, too, for Filipino sports fans who are now focusing more on tennis rather than on boxing or basketball. Blame that on the rise of Alexandra Eala in global women’s tennis.
Up until just months ago, tennis courts were among the neglected areas in the country. In our place, a subdivision nearby has a tennis court. I have this view that land developers, more often than not, build tennis courts that also function as basketball courts to entice basketball and tennis fanatics. It’s like hitting two birds with one stone. But tennis courts always end up getting neglected because tennis is a game difficult to set up. One has to have a racket, a net and some balls to play it. Plus ball boys are needed to pick up the, yes, tennis balls when the game is on.
One thing that Alex Eala is proud of is that tennis courts in the country are filling up. Blame that on the “Alex Eala effect.” And for the first time, the country hosted an international tennis event, the Philippine Women’s Open, a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 125 tournament. Meaning that the Philippines has inserted itself into a world previously populated only by Europeans and Americans.
I was and still am a basketball fan and have added a woman, Caitlin Clark, among my list of “idols.” But I was also and still is a fan of tennis. Names like Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, the Williams sisters, Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal and many others attracted me to the sports pages of newspapers that my late father sometimes brought home. Nowadays, a Filipina, Alex Eala, is being added to the list.
Years ago, whenever Manny Pacquiao fights, I always look for ways to be in front of the TV screen. Whether I was at home or outside, even when I was with my wife who delivered a baby in the hospital, I would always be with fanatics making a noise every time Pacquiao hits an opponent. I haven’t reached that level of fanaticism yet with Eala’s games. But I am cheering.