MANILA, Philippines – In last week’s W60 Templeton, Alex Eala got booted out despite dominating the first set of her second round match. She made sure there would be no repeat of that as she finished strong even after dropping the second set to win her opening round match in the RSF Pro Open. 

Eala scraped past 21-year-old Dalayna Hewitt of the United States, 6-1, 2-6, 6-0, on Wednesday, October 5 (Thursday, October 6, Philippine time) in the W80 ITF event at the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club in California, USA.

The 17-year-old Eala, who had to go through two qualifying matches to earn a ticket to the main draw, managed to assert herself in the exchanges as her superior groundstrokes offset Hewitt’s big serves which produced seven aces compared to Eala’s solitary ace.

Now ranked 281st in the world, Eala immediately jumped to a 4-0 advantage in the opening set as she broke Hewitt twice before the American managed to put herself on the scoreboard.

Hewitt, however, showed she had some fight left in her in the second set as she pocketed the first three games to go up 3-0 against the Filipina teen star. The American created enough separation to extend the match to a deciding set.

Unfortunately for Hewitt, Eala had more than enough gas left in the tank in the third set as she owned the decider and blanked her American rival, 6-0.

The 2022 US Open girls singles champion converted six break points the entire match and dropped serve just thrice. She also had more points and winners at 92 while allowing Hewitt just 76. 

Eala will advance to the second round of this $80,000 event where she will be up against 23-year-old Katherine Sebov of Canada. 

Sebov stunned seventh seed and fellow Canadian Carol Zhao in three sets in the first round of competition. At 280th in the world, Sebov is ranked a notch higher than Eala. 

The Canadian reached a career-high 192nd in the world rankings in 2019.

– Rappler.com