Alex Eala played what perhaps was her best tennis the entire week, and it spelled doom for 16th seed Katherine Sebov of Canada.
The 17-year-old product of the Rafael Nadal Academy did not drop her serve in her 6-2, 6-1 demolition of the 23-year-old Sebov in the semifinals of the VIII Open ITF Arcardis Brezo Osuna held at the Club Deportivo Brezo Osuna in Madrid, Spain.
Sebov came into the semifinals running high on the momentum of her back-to-back victories over 2nd seed Anastasia Tikhonova of Russia in the round of 16 and over fifth seed Carole Monnet of France in the quarterfinals of the $60,000 event.
But any hopes of the Canadian sustaining her form in the final four of the tournament were immediately quashed by Eala who broke Sebov’s serve twice in the opening set.
Things turned from bad to worse for Sebov in the 2nd set. After Eala tied the count at 1-all on her serve, she regained the upper hand by breaking Sebov in the 3rd game. Eala followed it up with two more service breaks and prevented Sebov from gaining any more points.
Eala, who is in the first W60 finals of her young career, will be gunning for the title on Sunday against 14th seed Marina Bassols Ribera of Spain who prevailed in straight sets in the semifinals over Adithya Karunaratne of Hongkong, 6-1, 6-3.
