Eala continues fine play, barges into W60 Madrid final

MANILA, Philippines — Red-hot Alex Eala rolled to the finals of the elite W60 Madrid, making short work of Canada’s Katherine Sebov with a 6-2, 6-1 win Saturday at the Club Deportivo Brezo Osuna in Spain.

Behind a near-perfect performance, the Filipina wunderkind needed only 63 minutes to finish off the 16th-seeded Canadian counterpart in two sets to barge into her first W60 finals appearance.

Eala will face either Spain’s Marina Bassols Ribera or Hong Kong’s Adithya Karunaratne from the other semifinal pairing for the prestigious crown of the $60,000 Spanish tourney.

The 17-year-old ace only had one fault in the entire match while scoring two aces against another higher-ranked opponent in Sebov, the WTA No. 333.

Ranked No. 413, Eala previously bested an array of seasoned challengers highlighted by a 6-1, 6-4 quarterfinal win over WTA No. 182 and Madrid No. 3 seed Jaimee Fourlis of Australia.

Even in that match, Eala needed only 68 minutes to advance in her first W60 semifinal appearance as well.

The 17-year-old sensation previously trounced Bulgaria’s Lia Karatancheva, 6-4 6-4 and Chile’s Daniela Seguel, 6-1, 6-2, before scoring a comeback win against local bet Yvonne Cavalle-Reimers, 0-6, 6-2, 7-5, to progress in the quarterfinals.

Coming off a three-bronze medal haul in her Southeast Asian Games debut, Eala is vying to pick up her third title in the professional circuit after wins in the 2021 W15 Manacor in Spain and the 2022 W25 Chiang Rai in Thailand.