Alex Eala overcame a huge challenge from a hard-fighting foe from Belarus to book her spot in the Round of 16 of the Jingshan Tennis Open women’s singles event.
Eala flirted with disaster before booking a 6-3, 7-5 win over Aliona Falei in the Round of 32 on Tuesday at the Jingshan International Tennis Tournament Center in China.
Sitting a No. 58 in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) ranking, Eala overcame a challenging second set before going full blast to clobber the world No. 322 Falei in one hour and 51 minutes to advance to the next round of this WTA 125 event that serves as a warm-up event for the Wuhan Open on 6 October.
Eala actually started strong as she won the first three games. They held serve the rest of the set before the Filipina ace secured a 6-3 set win.
But the second set proved to be a challenge for the 20-year-old Eala despite posting an early 2-0 lead. A game Falei fought back and tied the count at 2-2 after breaking Eala’s serve.
Then, Eala took a medical timeout after winning the fifth game but returned to wrap up the game. Both netters then went back and forth as they broke each other’s serves until Falei tied the set at 5-5 before Eala delivered in the next game to gain the match point.
Then, Eala posted a huge 30-0 lead in the next game before unleashing back-to-back strong serves that forced the Belarusian to commit two attack errors en route to the Filipinas’ victory in the opening round of this event that offers $160,000 on top of ranking points.
Eala will be facing Yamaguchi Mei of Japan in the Last 16 on Wednesday.
Currently at No. 286 in the WTA rankings, Mei is coming off a 6-4, 6-1 sweep of Cody Wong of Hong Kong in the Round of 32 also on Tuesday.
A victory over Mei will put Eala closer to her second WTA title after ruling the Guadalajara 125 Open in Mexico earlier this month.
Potentially standing in Eala’s way of a WTA title could either be No. 2 seed Talia Gibson of Australia or No. 3 seed Lulu Sun of New Zealand.