No. 2 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova was well-prepared for the challenge that Alexandra Eala — and the fervent Filipino diaspora crowd — would pose in the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open quarterfinals. It showed, as she notched a 6-3, 6-3 win in 1 hour and 30 minutes to reach her first semifinal of 2026.<\/p>\n
Abu Dhabi: Scores<\/a> | Draws<\/a> | Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n “I saw the last match,” Alexandrova said in her on-court interview, referring to Eala’s remarkable comeback from 4-0 down in the third set — saving a match point — the previous day against Aliaksandra Sasnovich.<\/p>\n “She was fighting ’til the end. I knew it was going to be difficult but I think the atmosphere was amazing today — the crowd, I know they were cheering for her but I think the atmosphere was great. So I enjoyed my time on the court, and I’m happy I could finish in two sets because it was really difficult in the end.”<\/p>\n Despite the scoreline, the contest remained tense throughout, largely owing to Alexandrova playing her best tennis to gain a lead, but Eala playing her best tennis with her back to the wall. Alexandrova’s superior firepower — she struck 33 winners to Eala’s 15 — enabled her to break first in both sets. But both times, Eala upped her intensity whenever she was behind, searching for a potential turning point.<\/p>\n Alexandrova did well to avoid that happening and to keep her nose in front. The gulf in quality between the two players’ serves was crucial — despite landing 70% of her first serves, Eala won just 45% of those points (fewer than the 53% she won behind her second delivery). Alexandrova, by contrast, won 70% of her first-serve points. Consequently, for all Eala’s fighting spirit off the ground, the ability to find a winning serve or return was always in the 31-year-old’s pocket.<\/p>\n That proved to be the case in the final game of the first set, in which Alexandrova saved four break points before converting her first set point with a simple one-two punch. At 3-3 in the second set, having had her lead pegged back, Alexandrova again found a returning level that was too hot for Eala to handle.<\/p>\n “I was trying to remind myself, ‘You need to play until the last point,'” Alexandrova said. “I was trying to keep my focus on that — I think that really helped me. Not thinking about the outcome but more about the process.”<\/p>\n Both semifinals will pit a seeded player against an opponent breaking new ground on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz this week. Qualifier Sara Bejlek and wild card Hailey Baptiste will both be making their tour-level semifinal debuts on Friday.<\/p>\n In an all-qualifier quarterfinal, 20-year-old Bejlek delivered a flawless performance to defeat Sonay Kartal 6-0, 6-2 in just 63 minutes. The Czech won the first 10 games of the match by mixing up superb down-the-line redirects with deft drop shots, and held her nerve after Kartal got a brief foothold in the second set by extending the rallies. Bejlek will play Clara Tauson in the semifinals after the No. 3 seed came through 6-3, 6-4 over McCartney Kessler.<\/p>\n Alexandrova will face Baptiste, who triumphed in her third three-setter of the week 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 over No. 5 seed Liudmila Samsonova. It was the 24-year-old American’s second Top 20 win of the tournament — she also upset No. 4 seed Emma Navarro in the second round — and the fifth of her career overall.<\/p>\n Baptiste upsets Samsonova in Abu Dhabi to reach first career WTA semifinal<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 2 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova was well-prepared for the challenge that Alexandra Eala — and the fervent Filipino…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747,83],"class_list":["post-462760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}