{"id":417495,"date":"2026-06-18T07:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T07:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/?p=417495"},"modified":"2026-06-18T07:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T07:44:11","slug":"eala-conquers-vekic-to-advance-at-wta-500-berlin-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/eala-conquers-vekic-to-advance-at-wta-500-berlin-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Eala conquers Vekic to advance at WTA 500 Berlin Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MANILA<\/strong> \u2013 Filipino Alexandra Eala survived her first-round match at the WTA 500 Berlin Open, beating Queen’s Club champion Donna Vekic, 7-5, 6-4, Wednesday on the grass of the Steffi Graf Stadium in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eala, who is now 2-0 against Vekic, won the WTA 125 Birmingham Open at the Edgbaston Priory Club in England last June 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vekic, on the other hand, ruled the HSBC Championships (Queen’s Club Championships) last June 14 to secure her first career WTA 500 title. She entered the main draw as a “lucky loser” and conquered British Emma Raducanu, 6-0, 7-6 (6) in the final to become the first Croatian to win the women’s singles title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eala recovered from 0-40 in the final game to win the match and set up a duel with World No. 2 Elena Rybakina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second-seeded Rybakina had a first-round bye along with World No. 1 and top seed Aryna Sabalenka, third seed American and 2024 champion Jessica Pegula, and fifth seed American Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liudmila Samsonova won the tournament’s inaugural event in 2021 followed by Ons Jabeur (2022) and Petra Kvitova (2023). Czech Marketa Vondrousova defeated Chinese Wang Xinyu, 7-6(10), 4-6, 6-2, last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told myself that she\u2019s fighting back, but I\u2019m also a fighter, so I have to try. I have to try and I have to give her a hard time,” the 21-year-old Eala told Sky Sports during the post-match interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDonna is an incredible player and she\u2019s been showcasing it a lot lately, and every time I play her, it\u2019s been very difficult,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo I had a lot of expectations for this match in terms of the level that I had to bring in, and I\u2019m happy with the intensity today,\u201d added Eala, who sits at No. 34 in the WTA Live Singles Rankings with 1,422 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She reached a career-high World No. 33 after winning the Birmingham Open, her first title on grasscourt and second WTA 125 crown after the 2025 Guadalajara Open in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, she bagged the gold medal at the Thailand SEA Games, the Philippines’ first in women’s singles after 26 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 Filipino Alexandra Eala survived her first-round match at the WTA 500 Berlin Open, beating Queen’s Club champion Donna Vekic, 7-5, 6-4, Wednesday on the grass of the Steffi Graf Stadium in Germany. Eala, who is now 2-0 against Vekic, won the WTA 125 Birmingham Open at the Edgbaston Priory Club in England last June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417499,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417495\/revisions\/417499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}