Eala advances at Queen’s Club, sets Round 2 clash with Iva Jovic

SO GRASS, so good.

Alexandra “Alex” Eala continued her hot tear on grass with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Chinese ace Shuai Zhang in the HSBC Championships Round 1 late on Tuesday night at the Queen’s Club in London.

Ms. Eala picked up from where she left off after reigning supreme at the WTA 125 Birmingham Open last weekend, needing only 69 minutes to score an emphatic debut in the Queen’s Club Championships known as one of the oldest grass tournaments in the world since 1889.

And so Ms. Eala, WTA No. 33, earned another shot at her good friend Iva Jovic, WTA No. 19 and No. 6 seed, of the United States in a duel set at press time.

Ms. Jovic, who beat Ms. Eala in Round 1 of the French Open, 6-4, 6-2, pulled off a 6-3, 6-4 win over WTA No. 58 Antonia Ruzik of Croatia to advance.

Ms. Eala, for her part, broke free from a 3-3 deadlock in the first set by owning the last three games en route to a 3-1 start in the second on her way to an easy sweep against Ms. Zhang, a two-time doubles Grand Slam champion at world No. 8.

Ms. Eala’s debut in the 500-level tour came on the heels of her conquest in Birmingham, where she finally solved the mystery puzzle of Czech players after a previous 0-13 record with a 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 squeaker against No. 61 Nikola Bartunkova.

The 21-year-old Filipina was actually a qualifier in the Queen’s Club, where Serena Williams also ended a four-year hiatus with a doubles win with Canadian star Victoria Mboko, before getting the main draw nod in lieu of Jessica Pegula and Hailey Baptiste of the United States due to injuries.

The other replacement was Karolina Pliskova of Czechia, who scored a 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 win over American McCartney Kessler.

The Queen’s Club, with a stacked field led by world No. 2 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, No. 5 Amanda Anisimova of the United States, No. 8 Ms. Mboko, No. 11 Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and her good friend Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine, who reached the semifinals of the just-concluded French Open to climb to No. 12, is part of Ms. Eala’s preparations for the Wimbledon on June 29 to July 12.

Before that, she’s also set for a historic team-up with former world No. 1 and seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams in the WTA 500 Bad Homburg Open on June 21 to 27 in Germany. — John Bryan Ulanday