MANILA – Filipino Alexandra Eala defeated Turkish wildcard Zeynep Sonmez, 6-4, 6-3, early Tuesday morning in the first round of the WTA 500 Abu Dhabi Open at the Zayed Sports City International Tennis Centre in the United Arab Emirates.
Eala, who achieved a career-best World No. 49 ranking on Monday, will be up against Aliaksandra Sasnovich, who eliminated No. 8 seed Paula Badosa of Spain, 6-4, 3-6, 6-1.
Indonesian Janice Tjen also advanced, prevailing over Australian Maya Joint, 7-6 (6), 3-6, 6-3 to set up a showdown with No. 5 seed Ludmila Samsonova, who beat American Sofia Kenin, 6-4, 6-0.
In the doubles, Eala and Tjen will meet Leylah Fernandez of Canada and Kristina Mladenovic of France in the round-of-16.
Meanwhile, the sixth-seeded Fernandez clobbered French Chloe Paquet, 6-0, 6-3, to set up a second-round duel with American McCartney Kessler, who triumphed over Anastasia Pavlyunchenkova, 6-3, 6-3.
Other first-round winners were British Sonay Kartal over Spanish Cristina Bucsa, 6-3, 7-6 (8); Swiss Simona Waltert over Australian Daria Kasatkina, 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-4; American Hailey Baptiste over Serbian Teodora Kostovic, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; and Czech Sara Bejlek over American Ashlyn Krueger, 6-3, 6-0.
Kartal will take on defending champion and No. 1 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, Waltert will meet No. 3 seed Clara Tauson of Denmark, Baptiste will battle No. 4 seed Emma Navarro of the USA, while Bejlek will face No. 7 seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, who won over Oksana Selekhmeteva, 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-2.
Bencic, Tauson, and Navarro drew first-round byes along with No. 2 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, who will meet Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska, a 6-2, 7-5 winner over Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia. (PNA)