Alex Eala ended her campaign in her maiden Wimbledon appearance on Thursday, July 8 at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in London.

The duo of Swiss Chelsea Fontenel and American Ashlyn Krueger pulled off an upset over the tournament No. 3 seed of Eala and Indonesian Priska Nugroho, 6-4, 4-6, 11-9, in the second round of the girls doubles event.

Fontenel and Krueger had the opening set advantage, but the Southeast Asian pair forced a decider by winning three crucial break points in the second set.

But the winning pair outlasted Eala and Nugroho in the tiebreak to oust the reigning Australian Open girls doubles champions.

Eala was coming off a gritty singles loss to Spain’s Ane Mintegi del Olmo a few hours before entering the doubles game. Nugroho also lost to Italian Matilde Paoletti.

The players had to deal with a compressed schedule following the cancellation of games on Tuesday due to bad weather.

But both Eala and Nugroho managed to impress in their 2021 Wimbledon girls doubles opener with a double-bagel win.

The 16-year-old Filipina will continue her third title hunt in the next Grand Slam after she bagged championships with Nugroho in the 2020 Australian Open and most recently, in the the 2021 French Open girls doubles with Russian partner Oksana Selekhmeteva.

In last year’s French Open, Eala also made history as she became the first Filipino in 35 years since Felix Barrientos in the 1985 Wimbledon tournament to make the last four of a Grand Slam juniors singles event.

At 15 years old, Eala became a pro titlist in the women’s $15,000 tournament in Manacor, Spain at the start of the year. – Rappler.com