Seemingly recovered from the injury that hampered her in the opening round, Alex Eala unleashed her full arsenal of groundstrokes in a dominant performance on Thursday.
The top-seeded Filipina was all business, dismantling Japan’s Mei Yamaguchi, 6-0, 6-3, in the second round of the Jingshan International Tennis Tournament Center in Hubei, China.
After needing two tight sets and a lengthy medical timeout to get past Aliona Falei of Belarus in the opening round, Eala looked far less restricted against the unseeded Yamaguchi, who had no answer to her consistent and powerful shot-making.
Currently ranked No. 57 in the world, the 20-year-old Eala stormed out of the gates, racing to a 5-0 lead in the opening set without facing a single break point.
The 26-year-old Yamaguchi finally had a chance to get on the scoreboard when she went up 40-30 in the sixth game. However, Eala saved the break point and held serve to complete a 26-minute bagel.
Yamaguchi, ranked No. 268, offered more resistance in the second set.
After Eala built a 2-0 lead, the Japanese held serve on her second opportunity to close the gap to 2-1.
In the fifth game, Yamaguchi went up 40-15 with another chance to hold, but Eala clawed back to break serve and stretch her lead to 4-1.
Yamaguchi then responded, earning her first service break of the match and snatching the next two games to stay alive at 4-3.
But Eala quickly shut the door, sweeping the final two games to seal the victory in one hour and 12 minutes.
With the win, Eala advances to the quarterfinals, where she will meet 35-year-old Chinese veteran Lu Jia-Jing.
Another victory could set up a semifinal clash with New Zealand’s Lulu Sun, who ousted Eala in the Wimbledon qualifiers in 2024 before going on a breakthrough run to the quarterfinals of the Grand Slam.
