13-year-old tennis prodigy impresses, bags under-18 international title

Alexandra Eala has been dubbed by many as the country’s brightest tennis prospect, and she validated such claims when she enthralled the local crowd after winning the Phinma-PSC International Juniors Girls Under-18 Tennis Championships held at the Manila Polo Club in Makati this past week.

Ranged against a tough foreign field, the 13-year-old prodigy showed an impressive combination of power and finesse as she methodically broke down her more experienced and older opponents. In the first round of the competition, the eighth seeded Eala quickly disposed of Hsuan Huang of Chinese-Taipe, 6-0, 6-1. In the second round, Eala faced a determined Erika Matsuda of Japan who proved to be the Filipina’s first acid test. She still prevailed after recovering from a first set deficit, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. In the quarterfinals, Eala had to go through another three-set thriller before prevailing over Yu-Yun Li of Chinese-Taipei, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3.

Eala, who is in back in the country for a short break from Spain where she began studying and training this year on a tennis scholarship at the pretigious Rafael Nadal Academy, made short work of another Chinese-Taipei bet, sixth seed Wei Ning Fang, in the semifinals, 6-1, 6-3, to advance to the finals against Dasha Plekhanova of Canada.

Later, the young star proved to be too much to handle for her doubles partner as the Filipina wonder prevailed in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2 to emerge the Girls’ Champion of the prestigious International Tennis Federation event.

This is a fitting follow-up to Eala’s impressive run as of late after she won last month the singles and doubles titles of the ITF Under-18 I Trofeo David Ferrer competition in Spain.

In the Boy’s Under-18 competition, the country’s top bet, Arthur Craig Pantino, tried his earnest to defend the homecourt but fell short in the semifinals of the singles competition to third seed Fumiya Yoshino of Japan, 6-2, 4-6, 3-6. Pantino also made the finals of the boy’s doubles with compatriot Justin Suarez but they dropped a heartbreaker to the top seeded pair of Yoshino and Tom Evans of Australia, 6-4, 2-6, 8-10.

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