MANILA, Philippines, July 18 ------ The magic between Alex Eala and Estelle Cascino apparently has not waned as they opened their campaign in the ITF W100 Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain on a winning note. The Filipino-French pair prevailed in straights sets over Spanish teen sisters Carolina and Jimena Gomez, 6-3, 6-2, at the hard courts of the Peña Vitoriana Tenis Club.
Last March, the 19-year-old Eala won the second doubles title of her pro career when she and the 28-year-old veteran Cascino teamed up as an unseeded pair to win the ITF W75 Open 3C de Seine et Marne in Croissy-Beaubourg, France, by upsetting the tournament top seeds in the final. Eala also headed into the match toting a career-high world ranking of 155, just weeks after falling a win short of qualifying for the Wimbledon main draw.
After dropping serve in the third game of the opening set to fall behind, 1-2, the third-seeded Eala and Cascino claimed the next four games to build a 5-2 lead. They went up a set when they closed out in the ninth game. Eala and Cascino were even more dominant in the second set, jumping to a 5-1 advantage after breaking the serves of both Carolina, a junior with the University of Arkansas Razorbacks in the US NCAA Division 1, and her 18-year-old younger sister Jimena. The match was all over in just 56 minutes when the Filipina and French tandem held serve in the eighth game of the second set to book a seat in the quarterfinals.
Eala will return to the court on Wednesday as she begins her quest for the singles title. Ranked fifth in the tournament, Eala will face in the first round 21-year-old Dutch-Vietnamese qualifier Lian Tran, currently 610th in the world rankings. She will, however, have to contend with a tough field bannered by top seed Ukrainian Diana Snigur. who recently made the second round of Wimbledon, French second seed Jessika Ponchet, former world No. 49 and third seed Linda Fruhvirtová of the Czech Republic, and former world junior No. 1 Victoria Jiménez Kasintseva from Andorra.
Meanwhile, in Thailand, the Philippines’ top men’s doubles player Francis Casey Alcantara and Thai teen Maximus Jones are on track in their quest for back-to-back titles by coming back from a 1-3 deficit in the opening set to still prevail over Rishi Reddy and Dhakshineswar Suresh of India, 7-6(4), 6-3, in the ITF World Tour M6 in Nakhon Si Thammarat. Alcantara and Jones copped the championship the previous week in the ITF World Tour M5 by defeating the same opponents, Reddy and Suresh.
The top-seeded Alcantara and Jones will next face the unseeded Thai pair of Kasidit Samrej and Pawit Sornlaksup in the quarterfinals.
Source: rappler.com
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