Alex Eala booked her place into the second round of the 2022 Engie Open de l’Isere after beating Joanne Zuger, 6-4, 6-1, Tuesday evening (Philippine time) in Grenoble Tennis in France.
After missing on a bagel for the second set on her own serve, the two-time Grand Slam juniors doubles champion made sure to end the one-hour-and-nine-minute contest on the next game, taking the final two points of the set and the match.
Eala earlier had the same struggles in her previous service game, but eventually closed out that fourth game with two straight points as well to go up 4-0. She then needed to outhustle the Swiss opponent in the succeeding game to go to 5-0 and grabbed the opportunity to close out the contest.
In the first set, the 16-year-old upstart earlier came back from a 2-3 deficit to take the set advantage. She came up blazing with three straight games, all of them to love, to lead at 5-3 and put the first frame basically on her pocket.
Eala earlier needed to go through the qualifiers again where she took down Thanh Lan Truong of France, 6-3, 6-2, and outlasted Italy’s Stefania Rubini, 4-6, 6-4, 10-4. The result thus placed her into her first main draw of the year.
Eala will take on fourth seed and hometown bet Chloe Paquet in the next round.
