THE Philippines’ Alex Eala made it safely to the round-of-32 in the WTA1000 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
That’s after Eala’s opponent, Hailey Baptiste of the United States, retired due to an injury in their first-round encounter at the Aviation Club Tennis Centre in United Arab Emirates on Monday.
.The score was 6-4, 0-1, in favor of the Filipino champion when the American qualifier retired.
“No one likes advancing this way, but I’m happy to make it to the next round,” Eala was quoted as saying.
“I really hope she’s OK and will bounce back soon,” added Eala, who earlier begged off from personally receiving the “Athlete of the Year” award of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) for 2025 due to.earlier commitments to play in Dubai.
Up next for the 20-year-odl Filipino champion is world No. 6 Jasmine Paolini of Italy.in the Round of 32.
The Italian tennis player, who already won three WTA titles, was the Dubai Open champion two years ago.
The 30-year-old Italian champion also reached the finals at the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year.
Paolini drew a bye in the first round.
The winner of the Eala-Paolini round-of-32 matchup will meet the winner between Linda Noskova and either Sorana Cirstea or Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the next phase.
In other results, Kimberly Birrell of Australia, Barbora Krejcikova of Czech Republic, Magda Linette of Poland, and Janice Tjen of Indonesia also hurdled their respective matches.
Birrell defeated Tatjana Maria of Germany, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, to advance against top seed Elena Rybakina.
Krejcikova outsteadied Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-4 6-4, to forge a second-round encounter with No. 2 Amanda Anisimova of USA.
Linette triumped over Lulu Sun of New Zealand, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, to set up a meeting with No. 8 Ekaterina Alexandrova, a runner-up at the WTA 500 Abu Dhabi Open two weeks ago.
Tjen conquered Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine, 6-4, 6-1, to advance against Leyla Fernandez of Canada, who ousted No. 13 Ludmila Samsonova, 5-7, 7-5, 6-3.
Other first-round winners were No. 10 Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic, Elise Mertens of Belgium, Peyton Stearns of USA, Ella Seidel of Germany and Diana Shnaider.
Last week, Eala has officially broken into the Top 40 of the WTA rankings.
Eala climbed to world No. 40, a new career-best, ahead of her opening-round match at the WTA 1000 Qatar Open in Doha, according the rankings released yesterday.
For doubles, Eala has already entered into the top 100 after being ranked No. 99.
A strong showing at the Abu Dhabi Open fueled Eala’s surge, as the 20-year-old made it to the semifinal in doubles with Indonesian Janice Tjen, and quarterfinal in singles.
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