Zheng Qinwe<\/a>n in a gritty 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win in the Mubadala DC Open first round. The Filipina will next face Wednesday reigning champion Leylah Fernandez, who defeated Magda Linette in straight sets Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\nAt 4-3 in the second set, Zheng had just broken Eala at love, two games away from her first win at the tournament after an early exit last year. Zheng, former No. 4 but current No. 123 on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz, had seemingly been in control of the match up until that point with the first set in her back pocket.<\/p>\n
”
\n I will say, over the last month the ticketing team says at least 80%, if not more, of the requests in this tournament are about when is Alex Eala playing. — Tournament chairman Mark Ein
\n ”<\/p>\n
Then, Eala returned the favor with a break of Zheng’s serve at love, kickstarting a stretch of seven consecutive games that saw Eala take the second set and amass a double-break 4-0 lead in the decider.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I definitely think it helped,” Eala said of the break. “Maybe if I hadn’t gotten that break, who knows? Maybe it would have been too big of a gap. You never know in tennis, but that definitely helped me I think.”<\/p>\n
Zheng snapped the streak with a break of Eala, but following similar pattern to the second set, Eala got the break back, but this time it secured the match. Though this was the first meeting between the two on the WTA Tour, Eala’s win Tuesday levels to head-to-head at 1-1 after Zheng won a three-hour thriller at the 2023 Asian Games.<\/p>\n
Eala said she’s always had the grit in her, but with more experience in these three-set matches against tough opponents, the more she’s become accustomed to rising to the occasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think I’ve already had that in me,” Eala said to press Tuesday. “I think it’s definitely a mindset that you have. That being said, I think it’s been trained or I’ve practiced. I’ve had more experience now to implement that mindset at the higher level.<\/p>\n
“That just comes also with the level of my tennis getting higher because you always want to win, and you always want to fight. But I think now with the progress I’ve had this past year, I have a bit more of ammunition to back it up.”<\/p>\n
‘It’s not an exaggeration. That’s actually what they tell me.’<\/p>\n
Tournament chairman Mark Ein told the media Tuesday that in the spring a huge effort was to bring Eala to Washington. The demand was certainly there, as within the last month, when Eala’s first-time participation was confirmed, the ticketing team had received the same inquiry one after another.<\/p>\n
“I will say, over the last month the ticketing team says at least 80%, if not more, of the requests in this tournament are about when is Alex Eala playing?,” Ein said. “Honestly, I think it’s more, and they just didn’t want to say it was more, but they’re, like, virtually all. It’s not an exaggeration. That’s actually what they tell me.<\/p>\n
“When you look at the amazing players here and how many great stars there are, it says something about Alex’s following. Obviously she’s been an icon, become an icon in the Philippines, but worldwide. So there’s obviously Filipinos everywhere. Having her here is honestly one of the really great things that’s already happened this year.”<\/p>\n
While it wasn’t a sold-out crowd Tuesday afternoon in Stadium Court, it was by a far pro-Eala fan base with Filipina flags seen here and there. Eala’s now guaranteed one more match in the United States capital, and she’ll have a chance to avenge a straight-sets defeat to Fernandez in Stuttgart earlier this year.<\/p>\n
“This is my first time competing in D.C,” Eala added. “I knew there was a Filipino community. Most of these places I’m not really sure what to expect at this point, but I was pleasantly surprised. I think there was a great atmosphere on court today, very electric.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON — It’s a Washington DC debut win for Alexandra Eala. Down a set and a break, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-832380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}