MANILA, Philippines, January 25 ------ Just a day after winning her doubles match, Alex Eala did the same in the singles opener of the ITF W50 Pune in India. The Filipina tennis standout began her singles campaign by making short work of Hungarian national team mainstay Fanny Stollar, 6-2, 6-2, at the Deccan Gymkhana. Eala did not drop her serve the entire match despite committing seven double faults. The only time the fifth-seeded Eala faced a deficit was when Stollar, owner of three doubles titles in the WTA tour, held serve in the opening game of the first set. Eala then pocketed the next three games to seize control of the set which she ended in the eighth game.
The 18-year-old Eala sustained her dominance in the second set, opening up a 5-1 lead before once again finishing off the 25-year-old Hungarian in the eighth game. “Good start to my singles campaign here at the ITF WTT W50 Pune,” Eala said in a social media post. Eala also won her opening-round doubles match with Darja Semenistaja on Tuesday, January 23, with the pair coming back from a set down against Yu-Yun Li of Chinese Taipei and Eri Shimizu of Japan. The Filipino-Latvian duo will gun for a semifinal spot on Thursday, January 25, against Jessie Anney of the United States and Lena Papadakis of Germany. Over at the Gandhi Nagar Club also in India, Eala’s Asian Games mixed doubles partner Francis Casey Alcantara also prevailed.
Alcantara – who won a bronze in the continental games with Eala last year – partnered with Christopher Rungkat of Indonesia, hacking out a a 6-1, 7-5 win over former world singles No. 17 and Wimbledon men’s singles semifinalist Bernard Tomic and Alexey Shtengelov of Australia in the first round of the GNC-BR Adityan Memorial ITF Men’s Future. They will face the Israeli pair of Orel Kimhi and Ofek Shimanov in the quarterfinals.
The last time Alcantara and Rungkat teamed up, they won back-to-back ITF men’s doubles titles in Malaysia last November and December.
Source: rappler.com
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