At A Glance
- Alex Eala couldn't break her rival's veteran poise as she bowed to Tatjana Maria of Germany, 7-5, 6-2, in the second round of the Guadalajara 125 Open in Mexico on Thursday, Sept. 5 (Manila time).
Alex Eala couldn’t break her rival's veteran poise as she bowed to Tatjana Maria of Germany, 7-5, 6-2, in the second round of the Guadalajara 125 Open in Mexico on Thursday, Sept. 5 (Manila time).

Eala unleashed her powerful hits to a fightback in the first set but Maria, a Wimbledon semifinalist, held her ground and relied on her experience to move into the next round.
A win could have set the 19-year-old Filipina tennis star to a quarterfinals battle with fellow unseeded Australian Olivia Gadecki in this Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 125 competition.
Gadecki survived Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini’s second-set counter, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
Maria, a 3-time WTA singles champion, broke Eala’s serve six times despite dropping three of her own.
Eala, however, fought tooth and nail but was not enough.
It was a double blow for Eala as she and Australian Kimberly Birrell bowed to Hungary’s Fanny Stollar and Poland’s Katarzyna Piter, 6-4, 6-4, in the doubles quarters that same day.