\n Published\u00a0Aug 1, 2026 09:30 am\n <\/p>\n
Alex Eala reaffirmed her mastery over world No. 10 Elina Svitolina with a 6-3, 6-4 victory to march into the semifinals of the Mubadala DC Open in Washington D.C. on Saturday, Aug. 1 (Philippine time).<\/p>\n
The Filipina ace neutralized the Ukrainian veteran\u2019s powerful serve, breaking the multiple Grand Slam semifinalist six times in the one-hour, 34-minute match to move within two wins of capturing the WTA 500 crown.<\/p>\n
The victory marked Eala’s sixth win over a Top 10 opponent this season and her second straight triumph over Svitolina.<\/p>\n
Their first meeting came in the quarterfinals of the Berlin Open last June, where the Filipina also prevailed in straight sets.<\/p>\n
Eala and Svitolina traded service breaks through the opening five games before the Filipina finally held serve in the sixth to build a 4-2 advantage. Riding that momentum, Eala dictated the pace the rest of the way and closed out the opening set in convincing fashion.<\/p>\n
Svitolina, a former world No. 3 and owner of 20 WTA Tour singles titles, raised her level in the second set by racing to 2-1 and 3-2 leads. But Eala stayed composed, patiently working her way back before delivering the decisive break in the 10th game to seal the match victory.<\/p>\n
The road to the title now runs through Naomi Osaka.<\/p>\n
With her victory over Svitolina, Eala advanced to a blockbuster semifinal showdown against the third seed and four-time Grand Slam champion, who rallied past Elisabetta Cocciaretto, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.<\/p>\n
Of course, Eala is aware of the task waiting for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is of course an accomplished player and I think she\u2019s made waves on and off the court for so many reasons and there\u2019s so much respect for that. I\u2019m really excited,\u201d said Eala of Osaka during the on-court interview moments after her victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t had that much time to think about it but of course, I\u2019m going to think about it,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published\u00a0Aug 1, 2026 09:30 am Alex Eala reaffirmed her mastery over world No. 10 Elina Svitolina with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[8239,12116,16304,1047,822,517,3391,5346,11289,16861,8241],"class_list":["post-45303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-elina-svitolina","tag-anew","tag-books","tag-dc","tag-eala","tag-elina-svitolina","tag-open","tag-osaka","tag-semifinal","tag-svitolina","tag-topples","tag-vs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}