A year ago, Alex Eala walked off the Birmingham Open courts after a first-round exit. On Sunday, she walked off as champion.
Eala arrived in Birmingham without momentum, having struggled during the clay season.
She reached the round of 16 in Linz, falling to Jelena Ostapenko, 7-5, 6-4. In Stuttgart, she lost in the first round to Leylah Fernandez, 6-1, 6-4.
Madrid saw a second-round defeat to Elise Mertens -- 6-2, 6-1 -- but Rome saw her best clay form of the season before losing to world No. 2 Elena Rybakina in the third round, 6-4, 6-3.
At Strasbourg, she suffered another early exit, to qualifier Oleksandra Oliynykova, 6-3, 5-7, 3-6. At Roland-Garros, she drew close friend Iva Jovic and bowed out of the French Open in the first round, 6-4, 6-2.
Grass, though, provided the timely reset.
Eala opened in Birmingham with a dominant win over Priscilla Hon, 6-0, 6-2, and followed up in a tighter battle against Alina Charaeva - winning 6-2, 7-5, having trailed 2-5 in the second set.
She beat Mananchaya Sawangkaew in the quarterfinals -- 6-3, 6-2 -- controlling most of the match after early exchanges, then came a tough semifinal vs. Rebeka Masarova, whom she defeated 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 after a brief rain delay at 5-2 in the third set.
By the final, she had already been tested in every way possible, but the match against Nikola Bartunkova featured more challenges amid numerous rain delays.
The Czech won the first set 7-5 after a late break, and then struck first in the second set, breaking to lead 1-0.
But Eala responded immediately.
She broke back, then gradually took control of baseline rallies and started dictating with heavier depth and sharper angles.
The second set swung her way, 6-3, but the third set turned into a full grind.
Eala survived break points early, trailed 1-2, then broke to lead 5-3. Bartunkova fought back to 5-5, but Eala broke again in the 11th game before serving out the match to win 5-7, 6-3, 7-5.
This was Eala's first win over a Czech opponent in 14 meetings. It's not a statistic she'll talk about publicly, but it matters in context. Czech players have long been a tough matchup group for her, and Bartunkova briefly looked like continuing that trend. Instead, Eala closed the loop.
Eala's name now sits alongside Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Maria Sharapova, and Petra Kvitova on the list of Birmingham champions, but she didn't put much emphasis on the company.