Alex Eala is on top once more.
The Filipino tennis ace came through with American Madison Sieg to subdue Croatia’s Lucija and Sofia Costoulas, 6-4, 4-6, 13-11, taking the girls’ doubles title at the 2021 ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors’ JA tournament at the Tennis Club Milano Alberto Bonacossa, Milan, Italy, Saturday.
This is the second title for the 16-year-old Filipino after taking her second Grand Slam title in Roland Garros just last month. Both championships came from clay courts.
The eventual champions had to dig deep in the match tiebreak and strung up three consecutive points to earn the title over the stubborn opponents in an hour and 34 minutes.
Eala and Sieg earlier took the first set after taking care of Ciric Bagaric and Costoulas in the last two games.
The Filipino-American pair stormed out of the gates with a 3-1 lead including an early break of serve. Nonetheless, the European tandem levelled it up at three apiece after taking a break of serve in return.
Eala and Sieg then shook off some service woes in the following game to go up at 5-4 before taking advantage of their opponents’ own miscues to take the set advantage.
Bagaric and Costoulas seized control of the second set early after going up 3-1 and on the strength of a break of serve. Only, Eala and Sieg carried on and eventually got their own break of serve that forced a deadlock at 4-all.
The Croatian-Belgian once more threatened after taking the ninth game of a service break before they dominated the final game to send the contest into a match tiebreak.
Eala will face Czech Republic’s Nikola Bartunkova in the finals of the singles events in an attempt to make it a double in this tournament.
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