{"id":15607,"date":"2026-07-04T16:03:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/15607\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T16:03:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:03:06","slug":"eala-upsets-wimbledon-champion-swiatek-in-win-for-philippines-no-2-seed-rybakina-also-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/15607\/","title":{"rendered":"Eala upsets Wimbledon champion Swiatek in win for Philippines, No. 2 seed Rybakina also out"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2013 Iga Swiatek\u2019s title defense at Wimbledon<\/a> ended Saturday in a 7-6 (9), 6-2 third-round loss to 21-year-old Alexandra Eala, who continues to make history for the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Eala is the first Filipino player, male or female, to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam singles tournament.<\/p>\n

The left-handed Eala dropped to her knees and rolled onto her back on Centre Court after hitting a forehand winner on her third match point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible to have my countrymen cheering me on and knowing that we\u2019re all in this together,\u201d she said in an on-court interview as she looked around at the Philippines flags.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis goes out to them, this goes out to my family, this goes out to all the little girls with ruffled socks and chubby cheeks. It means the world,\u201d said Eala, who saved two set points in the first-set tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

The third-seeded Swiatek earned her first Wimbledon women\u2019s title a year ago when she beat Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0<\/a> in the final.<\/p>\n

Eala, who has trained in Mallorca at the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy, gained worldwide support last year on her breakthrough run to the Miami Open semifinals<\/a>, which included an upset of Swiatek.<\/p>\n

2022 champion Rybakina also out<\/p>\n

Shortly before Swiatek’s exit, 2022 Wimbledon champion<\/a> Elena Rybakina was upset in the third round by Elise Mertens 7-6 (4), 6-1.<\/p>\n

At No. 2, Rybakina is the highest seed on the women\u2019s side to be eliminated and her loss ensures that Aryna Sabalenka will keep her No. 1 ranking after the tournament.<\/p>\n

Mertens faces Naomi Osaka in the fourth round on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Belgium\u2019s Mertens is the No. 25 seed at Wimbledon, where she\u2019s won two doubles titles.<\/p>\n

Serena and Venus withdraw from doubles<\/p>\n

Serena Williams<\/a> withdrew from her doubles match with sister Venus due to a right knee injury. The 44-year-old Serena was injured during her singles return earlier this week.<\/p>\n

The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion said in an Instagram post that she was \u201cheartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2013 Iga Swiatek\u2019s title defense at Wimbledon ended Saturday in a 7-6 (9), 6-2 third-round loss to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7812,10616,10620,10619,10618,9,10617,192,10615],"class_list":["post-15607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-elise-mertens","tag-maria-camila-osorio-serrano","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-poland","tag-solana-sierra","tag-sports","tag-venus-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}