Alexandra Eala Assesses Lessons After a Heavy Loss to Coco Gauff at the Dubai Tennis Championships

Alexandra Eala believes she has learned some lessons after succumbing to a straight-sets loss against Coco Gauff in the quarter-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships. The Filipino was seeking her first top 5 win of the season but was crushed by a ruthless Gauff, who wasted no time reaching the semi-finals.

Eala had produced another scintillating high-level performance as she did at the Miami Open last year. The 20-year-old defeated more experienced Hailey Baptiste in her opening match before surprisingly beating No.6 seed and former Dubai Tennis Championships winner Jasmine Paolini in straight sets.

In the round of 16, she breezed past Transylvania Open champion Sorana Cirstea 7-5, 6-4. In the quarter-finals, she was banking on the crowd’s support, who were by her side throughout the tournament. However, she couldn’t match Gauff’s aggression on the court as the American star needed just an hour and 7 minutes to beat the Filipino.

Eala won just two games during the encounter, both of which came in the second set as Gauff defeated the Filipino 6-0, 6-2. However, the quarter-finals reached in Dubai were the second time that Eala has reached the last eight of a WTA 1000 tournament in the past eleven months in the women’s circuit.

The first time she reached the quarter-finals was at the Miami Open, where she stunned Iga Swiatek to reach the semi-finals before losing to Jessica Pegula. During her post-match press conference in Dubai, the unseeded Philippina admitted that the gap between her and Gauff in the US is quite large, and she’s hoping to close it as the season progresses:

I think at the end of the day, yeah, I definitely could have performed better. But yeah, all things aside, at the end of the day, I think there’s still definitely a gap in terms of level between Coco and me and, you know, other players of her calibre. So, yeah, I think she did great, and my job is to try and close that gap, and I think I’m doing that quite well. So I’ll keep working on it, and hopefully next time we’ll be a bit tighter.

Gauff is currently the favorite to win the WTA 1000 title in Dubai as she’s the only top-4 player remaining in the draw. Elena Rybakina, who was the top seed, retired from her match in the round of 16 due to injury. Since Friday (February 13), 24 players in the entry list have either withdrawn or retired from the tournament.

Alexandra Eala excited about gaining more experience in WTA 1000 tournaments

Alexandra Eala was ranked outside the Top 100 at this time last season. It was after her semi-final run at the Miami Open last March that she first broke into the top 90 in the WTA rankings. Since then, she has gradually climbed up the ladder in the rankings, and she’s destined to rise to World No.32 following her run in Dubai.

Should she play in any match before the Miami Open, she’s likely to break into the top 30 for the first time in her career. That will give her an advantage at the WTA 1000 tournament in Miami, as it will reduce the likelihood of facing higher-ranked opponents early in the event. During the aforementioned press conference, Eala revealed that she’s beginning to love the experience on tour:

I think each, you know, each of those experiences were super special. So this week and Miami, everything was new there, you know, it was my first time being in the semifinal of a 1000 and playing all these players. This is a new experience for me in terms of crowd, in terms of playing all the night matches. So in each circumstance, there’s so many things that I can learn. So hopefully after this week I grow more as a player.

Anyway, Coco Gauff will face Elina Svitolina in the semi-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships. The match is a rematch of the Australian Open quarterfinals, which Svitolina won in straight sets. Should Gauff win the tie, she will face either Amanda Anisimova or Jessica Pegula in the final.

Also Read: Rio Open Fires Back at Francisco Cerundolo After Scheduling Dispute Ends Title Defense Early

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