Iva Jovic joked that her viral moment with fellow rising tennis star Alexandra Eala at Arthur Ashe Stadium during fan week was a sign of things to come.
Eala, whose popularity has taken the tennis world by storm and has been on full display during the U.S. Open, and Jovic invited their dads onto the court during an exhibition match last week.
The internet ate it up.
“I guess that was a little bit meant to be,” Jovic said following her second-round win over Francesca Jones, setting the stage for two of the sport’s young stars to collide once again this season.
Eala punched her ticket to the third round when she won earlier in the day over Oleksandra Oliynykova.
Eala, 21, and Jovic, 18, have faced one another twice already — a meeting at Roland-Garros earlier this summer and then again at the HSBC Championships in June — with Jovic coming out on top in both encounters.
However, this time, Jovic will have to face the full force of Ealamania when they face each other in Flushing Meadows.
“It’s going to be intense, but I love it, and I like the Filipinos,” she said. They bring some really good energy.”
But what makes the meeting so unique is the friendship behind the on-court rivalry.
Eala has been elevated to superstardom in her native Philippines, but the tennis sensation has said that having a close “sisterhood” with some of her fellow players on the tour has helped her on and off the court.
Jovic and Eala first crossed paths when the latter won the junior U.S. Open in 2022, but the two got closer starting late last year.
“I think it’s really good because it’s very lonely, and we are traveling basically all the time,” Jovic said. “So our concept of friendships and family and everything is a little bit warped, and maybe your life outside of tennis isn’t always — you’re not always home and you don’t see those people very often. So you need to have the people you can lean on through the tour, and not everyone’s open for that and personal choices, but you know it’s obviously very difficult to be friends and also compete.
“But there’s quite a few, especially the younger players, who are very open to that and want to have a good time, want to build friendships, and then on the court it’s fair game, winner takes all, we go for it. Alex is definitely one of those where we both put it aside, and we have a great connection.”
As of late Thursday night, it still wasn’t known where Eala and Jovic would face one another with a trip to the Round of 16 on the line, but with a chance that they could find themselves on either Ashe or Louis Armstrong, Jovic’s words ring true about their exhibition foreshadowing what was to come.
