For the third consecutive match, Alexandra Eala was pushed to a deciding set. And for the third consecutive time, the 20-year-old Filipina emerged on the winning side, defeating American Caty McNally to reach the fourth round of the National Bank Open in Toronto on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Playing in front of an electric Centre Court crowd packed with Filipino fans waving flags, Eala overcame a slow start and an early break deficit to take the opening set 6-3. The second set was far tighter, with both players exchanging two service breaks before Eala broke again to move ahead 5-4 and serve for the match.<\/p>\n
McNally, however, had other ideas. The American responded with a spirited comeback, winning three consecutive games to claim the second set 7-5 and force a decider. Eala quickly regained control, breaking at her first opportunity in the third set to build a 2-0 lead and maintaining that advantage the rest of the way for a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 victory in 2 hours, 39 minutes.<\/p>\n
“I think I survived that one,” Eala said on court after her win. “It was so tough. I wanna thank Caty for a great match and for being a great sport. It\u2019s one of those matches that could\u2019ve gone either way. It was down to details and a little bit of luck. It was a great match.”<\/p>\n
The win was Eala’s seventh in a row, the longest winning streak of her career, following her maiden singles title on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz in Washington earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Bencic overcomes Townsend in 3 hours, 24 minutes<\/p>\n
Awaiting Eala in the fourth round is former champion and No. 12 seed Belinda Bencic, who survived a 3-hour, 24-minute marathon against American Taylor Townsend just minutes before Eala completed her victory.<\/p>\n
After surrendering an early 5-2 lead in the opening set, Townsend eventually captured it in a tiebreak on her sixth set point. The pair remained locked in a tight battle throughout the second set, with neither able to secure a service break. This time, Bencic prevailed in the tiebreak to force a deciding set.<\/p>\n
Bencic struck first in the third, breaking for a 3-1 lead. Although Townsend leveled at 4-4, the Swiss broke again in the ninth game and served out a 6-7 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-4 victory.<\/p>\n
“It was a very big battle, of course,” Bencic said during her on court interview. “I think Taylor plays incredibly tricky and it was a very good match from her. I needed some time to get used to her game and try to find inside my game, play what I can. I felt very frustrated in the first set, but I’m happy that I never gave up and I think that’s the most important.<\/p>\n
The fourth-round clash will be the first meeting between Eala and Bencic at tour level. Bencic is seeking a fourth National Bank Open quarterfinal, while Eala will be aiming to reach her third WTA 1000 quarterfinal of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the third consecutive match, Alexandra Eala was pushed to a deciding set. And for the third consecutive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747,83],"class_list":["post-847711","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\/847711","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=847711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}