Eala dethrones defending champ Fernandez to make Washington quarters
For the second tournament in a row, Alexandra Eala has dethroned a tournament's defending champion. Four weeks after upsetting Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon third round, the Filipina took out No. 7 seed Leylah Fernandez 6-2, 7-6(1) in the Mubadala DC Open second round, overturning a 5-1 deficit in the second set.
In her only previous meeting with Fernandez, Eala had lost 6-1, 6-4 in the Stuttgart first round on clay in April. On her preferred hard courts, the 21-year-old's game proved more potent as she took advantage of an inconsistent performance from last year's winner.
The opening set was largely characterized by Fernandez's mistakes -- 14 unforced errors in eight games, to be exact. The Canadian double faulted to drop serve for 2-0, and her forehand abandoned her with three errors from that wing in the final game. Eala needed to strike just two clean winners to take the set.
The turning point for Fernandez came in the second game of the second set, an arduous six-deuce slog in which she alternated between hitting her targets and committing yet more mistakes. After saving one break point, she finally converted her sixth game point with a backhand winner -- a shot that seemed to unleash her best form.
Fernandez ran off five straight games as her rally tolerance, forehand accuracy and touch at net all improved, and seemed poised to force a decider when she advanced to 5-1.
However, Fernandez was unable to even reach set point. A 15-30 opportunity on Eala's serve at 5-1 was squandered as her groundstrokes went awry again, and another sequence of unforced errors followed as she failed to serve it out at 5-2.
Sensing opportunity, Eala struck. She came out on top of the best point of the match to break back for 5-5, an absolute steal of a defensive rally in which she punished Fernandez's reluctance to take the ball out of the air with a forehand winner.
Eala dominated the ensuing tiebreak. Once again, she was given a head start by Fernandez's mistakes -- the former US Open finalist tallied 42 unforced errors in total -- but took charge to close it out. The final two points were two brilliant all-court exchanges that saw Eala out-manoeuvre Fernandez to find consecutive forehand winners.
"I know that she was playing a little better, and maybe my level dropped a little bit," Eala said of her second-set comeback. "Those are very tricky moments, when you know your level has dropped and you want to do better, but things for one reason or another just aren't coming out. I think patience was key there, just trying to work it out, and a strong mentality in terms of trying to find solutions."
Eala will next face either No. 2 seed Elina Svitolina or Uzbek qualifier Polina Kudermetova. Elsewhere, there was more joy for another former Washington champion, 2022 winner Liudmila Samsonova, who raced past Wang Xinyu 6-2, 6-2 to reach her first quarterfinal since Abu Dhabi in February.
