Alex Eala absorbed a sorry 4-6, 0-6 loss to Ysaline Bonaventure of Belgium to make an early exit in the W60 Hamburg women’s singles event Thursday (Friday in Manila) in Hamburg, Germany.
Bonaventure, who is at No. 118 in the latest Women’s Tennis Association ranking, needed only an hour and 33 minutes to wrap up their Round of 16 match and send the 17-year-old Filipina packing.
With the win, the Belgian netter is set to face Anastasia Tikhonova of Russia in the quarterfinals.
The event that stakes a cash prize of $60,000 is the third professional match for Eala after winning the US Open junior girls title last month.
Eala, who is enjoying a career high No. 248 in the WTA ranking, made it to the second round of the W60 Templeton tournament before advancing all the way to the quarterfinals of the W80 Rancho Santa Fe event.
The Filipina rising star, however, has yet to reveal her next tournament.
Meanwhile, another Filipino netter in Treat Huey and his partner Max Schnur of the United States booked a 6-1, 7-6 win over Jelle Selis of the Netherlands and Benjamin Hassan in the Round of 16 of the ATP Hamburg Challenger Tour.
Huey and Schnur are facing the Dutch netter of Sem Verbeek and Artem Sitak of New Zealand in the quarterfinal at press time.
