By ADRIAN STEWART CO
MANILA – Filipina tennis star Alexandra Eala opened her campaign in the Philippine Women’s Open with a dominant straight-sets victory over Russia’s Alina Charaeva, 6–1, 6–2, in the round-of-32 on Monday night at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.
Playing before a packed home crowd, the week-long tournament’s No. 2 seed needed just 24 minutes to take the first set, overpowering Charaeva with aggressive baseline play.
Eala faced a brief scare early in the second set when she called for a medical timeout while trailing 2–1, but she returned with a bandage on her left thigh and quickly regained control of the match.
The 20-year-old Negrense went on to win the next six games, closing out the contest in one hour and 16 minutes to advance to the second round of the WTA 125 tournament.
Eala’s win was one of the highlights of the opening day of the tournament, which marked her first professional appearance on home soil.
Another Filipina, Tennielle Madis, was unable to join Eala in the next round after falling to Thailand’s Mananchaya Sawangkaew, 6–4, 6–0.
Madis opened strongly, taking a 2–0 lead in the first set, but Sawangkaew, a Southeast Asian Games silver medalist, responded with steady net play and consistency to turn the match around and dominate the second set. The match lasted one hour and 19 minutes.
Filipina wild card Elizabeth Abarquez also exited early, absorbing a 6–0, 6–0 loss to Japan’s Mai Hontama.
In the doubles action, Filipino pair Kaye Ann Emana and Justine Hannah Maneja were eliminated after a 6–2, 6–2 loss to Nicole Fossa Huergo of Argentina and Darja Semenistaja of Latvia.
Fellow Filipinas Angeline Alcala and Joanna Peña also bowed out, losing 6–0, 6–1 to Japan’s Sara Saito and Taiwan’s Li Yu-yun.
The Philippine Women’s Open, backed by the Philippine Sports Commission and sanctioned by the Women’s Tennis Association, continues this week at the historic Manila venue./PN
