{"id":956864,"date":"2026-11-03T14:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T14:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956864\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T14:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T14:52:09","slug":"eala-holds-firm-against-jones-to-reach-hong-kong-second-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956864\/","title":{"rendered":"Eala holds firm against Jones to reach Hong Kong second round"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Second seed Alexandra Eala held off British lucky loser Emerson Jones in straight sets to advance to the second round of the Prudential Hong Kong Open on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n<p>Eala made a fast start, racing to a 4-0 lead in the opening set. Jones, who entered the main draw following the withdrawal of American Alycia Parks, fought back to close the gap to 4-3 before Eala held on to take the set 6-4.<\/p>\n<p>The Filipino, ranked a career-high No. 17 in the WTA PIF Rankings this week, made another strong start in the second set, building a 5-1 lead. Jones recovered one of the breaks, but Eala held firm to complete a 6-4, 6-3 victory in one hour, 23 minutes.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83c\udfbe Crowd favourite and No. 2 seed Alexandra Eala delights the fans with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Emerson Jones, securing her place in the next round! \ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udc9c #PHKTO #PrudentialHongKong #DiscoverHongKong #WTA250 #HKCTA #HKTS #NextGenAces #GameOn #MajorSportsEventsCommittee #MSEC https:\/\/t.co\/gHuiMATob7<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 HongKong Tennis Open (@HKTennisOpen) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HKTennisOpen\/status\/2117607811861684348?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">November 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Eala will next face Czech teenager Tereza Valentova, who defeated qualifier Himeno Sakatsume 6-3, 7-5 in another first-round match Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Top seed Cirstea and No. 5 Gisbon also reach second round<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day, top seed Sorana Cirstea rallied from an early break down in the final set to defeat Maria Timofeeva 7-6, 1-6, 7-5 and advance to the second round. Cirstea will next face American Mary Stoiana, who defeated seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams in straight sets on Monday.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Terrific hitting \ud83d\udc4f Sorana Cirstea fully entertained in her match against Timofeeva. The No.1 seed advanced to the Round of 16 in Hong Kong, winning 7-6(6), 1-6, 7-5! #PHKTO2026 https:\/\/t.co\/uMZ6XmLIa7<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 wta (@WTA) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WTA\/status\/2117587686349242392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">November 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Fifth seed Talia Gibson, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 36 this week, overcame a 5-3 deficit in the opening set to defeat Oleksandra Oliynykova 7-6, 6-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, No. 7 seed Liudmila Samsonova suffered a first-round upset at the hands of Alexandra Shubladze. Making her WTA Tour main-draw debut, Shubladze rallied for a 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 victory to advance to the second round.<\/p>\n<p>Also advancing were Maya Joint, who won an all-Australian clash against Maddison Inglis 7-5, 6-2, and Zeynep Sonmez, who defeated Dayana Yastremska 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Second seed Alexandra Eala held off British lucky loser Emerson Jones in straight sets to advance to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-956864","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\/956864","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=956864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}