IT was a double-celebration for Alex Eala early this week, as she reached the doubles quarterfinals of the W100 Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain just days after achieving her career-high in the WTA rankings.
Eala, who recently fell short of the Wimbledon main draw, returned to action in a doubles match with France’s Estelle Cascino as they made light work of home bets Carolina and Jimena Gomez in their tournament opener, 6-3, 6-2.
READ: Alex Eala out of Wimbledon main draw after close qualifier loss
The pair only needed 56 minutes to dispose of the Spanish duo and move on to the next round of the tournament where Eala will also be competing in the women’s singles competition.
Both sets saw Eala and Cascino seize early leads, going up 5-2 and 5-1, respectively, in the first and second sets.
Those leads proved insurmountable for their foes as they breezed into the Top 8 of the tournament, where they face off against Victoria Bervid and Laura Mair.
The Filipino tennis star begins her singles campaign, meantime, in the Round of 32 on Wednesday against Lian Tran.
No going easy for Eala
At the same time, Eala reached a new career-high ranking of No. 155 in the world in the July 15 edition of the list released by the WTA.
This was seven places higher than her ranking at the start of the month at No. 162 and five steps forward from her previous career-high of 160.
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