Is Alex Eala A MUST Sell Right Now? | Serving Slabs #31

On today's episode of Serving Slabs, we talk about the player whose market is exploding in Wimbledon right now as she had some big wins and the market is going crazy. And that player is Alexandra Ayala, coming off of her win over IGA Witek, the second time she's beaten her in her career. And this one was the biggest of them all as it advances her to the round of 16 at Wimbledon, making her the first Filipino player ever to make a round of 16 at Grand Slam. I believe that she already became a in the round of 32, the deepest run at a Grand Slam. But round of 16 even better, especially when you beat the defending champion. So she beat her in straight sets. It was an impressive performance. And here are the sales that are just lighting the market on fire. You can compare any of these sales to honestly any other women's tennis player, and they are higher than the same card of that player. That includes Mira Andreva, Coco Gauff, Ray R. Bakna, IGA as well. It's insane what is happening right now with Ayala's market. And, and I will show you guys these sales and talk about it a little bit and why. So Topps Chrome PSA9 Green Auto Rookie out of 99 did $400. Yes or two days ago. Sapphire Auto PS9 did $425. You have a Blue Refractor Raw 250 did $75 Clay Court Rookie did $50. That's not even numbered. Clay Court Rookie $50 Match or Court Masters Refractor from Graphite. That's a third year card. Did $50 Prism Rookie from 2024 Top Trome not that rare. $50 Graphite on Car Gold Auto out of 25 PSA10 Rookie did $1,200. Her 2025 Gold Refractor Auto of 50 PSA9. That's a second year card. Did $350. Orange Auto 25 PSA10, $2,400, which is huge. And then a PSA9 Sapphire Rookie non auto did $575. That is just incredible. You look here, that same card sold for $200 last April and that was after she ended up beating iga, making a semifinal at the Miami Open. Obviously Wimbledon, a much bigger tournament from like, you know, a prestigious standpoint. And just like the impact standpoint, it's a Grand Slam as well. So this win means more than when she made the semia at Miami. But in the end, here's what I have to say about Ayala. Super awesome what she's doing for her Country. Super awesome to see her fans traveling all around the world to watch her. The impact that she's making back at home is huge. And even the impact on the tennis in general, you know, affecting other countries or maybe they don't have players that come up very often. She ended up going to going to the Nadal Academy, played there for many years, trained there for many years and has now become a household name. Obviously. The only thing is, is that personally I would stay so far away from her cards right now. While she's a fantastic player, she does have some deficiencies in her game and she's 21 years old, which while still young, she doesn't really have huge hardware to her name right now at all. The biggest title she's won is 125, which is not even considered a WTA Tour level title. She's not one of a 500 or 1,000 or a grand Slam. Obviously. While you look at other players like Mira Andreva, who's won two 1000s and a Grand Slam while also being two years younger, the impact from a stats and record standpoint is much different. However, I understand why her market is what it is. She's the first person from the Philippines to do all these things. Her fan base is huge. I do wonder if her fan base is actually buying these cards though, or is it just more people speculating on her car just getting hotter because she maybe makes a quarterfinal or semi final at a Slam, which would be all impressive feats obviously, but there's been many players who have done these achievements whose cards sell for much less. I would just be very, very careful. Careful right now. It does feel like a type of situation where, you know, as fast as it can go up in price, it can equally go down as fast in price. Will she have a great career? Yeah, I'm sure she will. Will she become a top 10 player at some point? She might. She needs much more consistent results and to win titles to do that. She's not done any of either of those two things yet. She is still young. Her serve is really the problem with her game. I mean, she can break a lot. She's great at returning. She actually strikes a super clean ball, especially in grass. It's super effective. But you know, when you're serving sometimes first serve in the 80s, you know, she can hit it up to like 104. I think second serve is, is nothing to note. It's. She does have some good placement, but it just, it's, it can get easy to read for these players if they, you know, Study her game enough before they play. I think as I'm recording this right now, Pellini is up in the, she won the first set. They're in a second set right now in the round of 16. So we'll see if she can make it to the quarterfinal. Once again, really impressive. Props to her, props to her fans for being able to travel and watch her do this type of stuff. I would just stay so far away from like a PSA 9 selling for $575. I mean, that's Alcaraz level pricing right there. Like, I, I would not want to be involved in that. It's crazy, honestly. But it's really cool to see, it's really cool to see the tennis market, something like this happen. I just think if you're looking to buy now, I would not. If you guys want to buy her after a card's fall in price, if she does get eliminated, that doesn't do very well at starting the hard courts this year. You know, the US hardcore swing, by all means, go for it if you think that you'll have another big result here soon. But I, I just, right now I would stay away personally and that's my personal opinion advice. But if you want to do it differently, you definitely can. Next up, another women's players having right now a huge resurgence is Naomi Osaka, who just beat Irina Sabalenka in straight sets. That is Sabalenka's first straight sets loss at a grand slam since 2020. That is a crazy streak, the second longest of all time with winning at least one set in every slam match that she plays. It's really crazy. Only behind Martina Navratilova and Sabalenka. She's been amazing, you know, for the last five years, world number one, you know, for two straight years now, just about. But in the end, she's having a really hard time winning Slams. And when you start to look at all time status, you need to win Slams to become an all time great. A lot of them. And she's still at four and has not won one on the natural surface as well. So which is either grass or clay. So she's got a lot of work to do to keep, you know, progressing. Her status with the all time greats, four Slams is impressive, no doubt, but once again, just like last year, she has to win the US Open to do so to win a Grand Slam this year. Oh yeah. As for Neymar, Osaka got off on a tangent there. Her serving is unbelievable. This is the best result she's had at Wimbledon. She actually just set career best results at both the French Open and Wimbledon. Last year she made to the semi at the US Open before losing to Anova. So she's had a lot of really, really good results recently. The thing with Osaka is it was a little unlucky. That was the fourth time that she's played Sabalenka in the round of 16 at a slam or a one this year. She lost the other matches. Her, she finally beat her next up she is Carolyn Mohova. After that she would possibly have or she would would have. If she wins, she'd have Pula or Coco Gauff. So I picked Pula to win the, you know, Wimbledon before going in the tournament. I picked Keys to be in the final. To be honest, it's looking like a pretty good pick right now. Not saying that's going to happen, but given that Sablanca, IGA and Robakin have all lost, it's kind of playing out that those two players can make the final. Coco, career best result as well on grass, which is really cool to see making the quarterfinal. I do think Pegula wins that. I do think that she'll have some chances against Osaka, but I do think Osaka, honestly right now I don't know why she wouldn't at least be a top three favorite if not the favorite to win this Grand Slam. She's played marvelous tennis and her transcendent auto 25 rookie from 2021 on card gold frame BGS9 just did $830 after that win. If you look back at the PSA10 February obviously much, much, much better grade. Normally probably sells for like 3x over a BGS9 or more depending on the type of card. 1095 that card right now I think it's at least a $2,500 card right now given that BGS9 sale. And yeah, that's, it's a, it's a crazy rise to see a BGS9 sell that much compared to what the PSA10 just did in February. So props to Osaka for really turning it around here and you know, after becoming a mom comes back and is having some career best results outside of the hardcourt, you know, titles that she won, you know, when she was back low 20s or you know, around 20 when she won those. So pretty incredible stuff. And let's keep moving on here. I actually already brought it up. Coco Pegula, former doubles partners. Really cool to see them coming to play at a quarterfinal of a Grand Slam. They actually have never played at a Grand Slam before. This which is shocking. Coco has been terrible on grass the last two years. She lost four straight matches on grass. Had a really nice draw for the first three matches. I do think if she drew a harder player at the start of the tournament, she maybe wouldn't make the quarterfinals like she just did. But getting Benjic in round of 16 is no easy task. She made the semifinal here last year. Um, but Coco lost the first set, won the next two. Really held serve well to end that third set too, which is always a little shaky with her closing out a match on serve. But she did it and did it before the curfew came into play. So that was nice to see. They didn't have to restart and play a game or two. Then the next day, and then on the men's side you've got the quarterfinals on the top half already locked down. Yannick Sinner against Jan Larf, which is a very, I'd say unexpected one. Hercatch upside casperude, which can you really call an upset. Rude is not good on grass. So I picked her Koch to win over Rude, but ranking wise it was. And then he also beat Tommy Paul, which I do think was an upset. I really thought Tommy Paul is playing spectacular coming to this event. Choked away one of those sets and then ended up losing to her Koch. And her Koch lost to Struve and had to retire. But he, you know, it was pretty long match. I think it got in the set five. But Cinder versus Struf, we'll see how that goes. And then we got Felix OJ Ali's team against Novak Djokovic, which is gonna be a great quarterfinal. Um, I really hope Novak comes through and gets to the semi. I think it'd be an awesome match against center seeing those guys on grass battling it out. And there's three top 10 players in the quarters for the top half of the draw. You look at the bottom half of the draw and you have got. How many is that? Five top 10 players. We're talking how many top 10 players? Eight of the top 10 seeds, not counting Alcarez, obviously. Eight of the top 10 seeds are actually into the quarters round of 16, which is impressive considering we saw a lot of players early at the French Open. I do think that, you know, either Demon or Caboli will be into the quarterfinal because they're both top 10 players. So that's one. And then you've got Bouloger or Fritz, that's two. Lahechka or Zverev, that's three. If Zverev wins that so you're looking at six of the of the eight core finalists being in the top 10 seeds. That's pretty good results. I think that's something similar at that play out last year actually at Wimbledon, but will be fun to see. I think. A lot of opportunity for all these guys here. I think Demonur is right now down two sets against Kaboli, which is not great. He really should have won that first set, failed the server on the loss in a tie break or sorry, second set, failed the serve it out, lost in a tie break. So we'll see who makes it. Dimitri will be an awesome player to get into the semis. Taylor Fritz, you know, trying to make it back to back semis and maybe a final appearance here if you can get past Zverev after Bublek, which he has won seven straight matches against Zverev, which is domination to say the least. So other than Wimbledon, guys, make sure you guys come to the national this year. End of July, last week of July, into the first weekend of August. Booth numbers 479 and 580. We will have the most tennis cards out of anyone there. Carlos Alcaraz cards Transcendent super fracture set or partial set along with so many $1, $5, $10, $25, all the way up to $500, $15,000 cards. It's going to be awesome. So really hope to see you guys there. And thank you guys once again for watching another serving Slabs podcast here on our podcast network plus on Collect originals on Fanatics Collect app. Guys, thanks so much for watching. Next time I talk to you guys, we will have a new women's Wimbledon champion over the last decade. No defending champions are remaining once again for the 10th straight year. And we will like or I'd say likely have either Sinner or Drugvich. But you never know, we might have a first time Wimbledon winner as well. So thanks guys so much for watching. Have a great rest of your day and we'll see you guys in the next serving Slabs episode.