The Filipina will also play the doubles final together with French Estelle Cascino against Karatancheva and Marcinkevica.  

 

The sixth day of the Araba World Tennis Tour saw some exciting and intense quarter finals, once again marked by the high temperatures in the capital of Alava.

 

After following the evolution of the Rafa Nadal Academy’s top student, Alexandra Eala is one of the biggest surprises of the tournament. Her young age of just turned 19, her physique and, above all, her winning mentality have been fundamental on her way to the semi-finals. The promising youngster made it through to the semifinals after beating Ukraine’s Yuliia Starodubtseva in two sets, both of which were resolved with comebacks. Going from less to more is part of the game of the Filipina who managed to take the first set in the tie break and overcame the break against the Ukrainian which began the countdown to finally winnng the match 6-7, 4-6.

 

Eala will face María José Portillo, who comes from the qualifying round. The Mexican is completing an extraordinary career. Today she eliminated the Australian Melisa Ercan in a match that went on for three hours and was decided in the third set with an epic tie break (2-6, 7-5, 7-6).

 

The big favourite, the French Jessika Ponchet was once again solid in her game to defeat the Lithuanian Justina Mikulskyte in two sets (6-4, 7-5) and will meet the Andorran Victoria Jiménez in the semi-finals. The young Andorran tennis player overcame the Czech Linda Fruhvirtova in a tough and intense match and was the big surprise of the day. Jiménez took advantage of her opponent’s unforced errors to take the first set. However, Mikulskyte recovered by breaking her serve three times to take the second set. With everything to decide in the third set, the player from Andorra looked more sure of herself from 4-4 and closed the match.

 

The semi-finals will be played this Saturday at 11am.

 

Final de dobles a las 17:00 horas

 

The Araba Aldundia centre court at the Peña Vitoriana Tenis Club will host an interesting doubles final this Saturday (17:00) between Alexandra Eala – Estelle Cascino and Lia Karatancheva and Diana Marcinkevica.

 

The former beat Portillo and Zeballos 6-2, 6-3. In the other semi-final, the Bulgarian and the Latvian were the surprise package, beating the favourite pair, Eden Silva- Valeriya Strakhova 6-3, 3-6, 10-12.

 

 

ORDER OF PLAY Saturday 20 July

https://live.itftennis.com/en/live-scores/?tourkey=W-ITF-ESP-2024-024