Alex Eala is set to climb the WTA Rankings after she earned a battling three-set win in her opening match at the 2026 Italian Open.<\/p>\n
In the first round at the WTA 1000 tournament in Rome, world No 42 Eala defeated 45th-ranked Magdalena Frech 6-0, 3-6, 6-4.<\/p>\n
Eala is making her second appearance at the Italian Open, and this was her first victory at the prestigious clay-court event after she lost in the opening round on her debut in 2025.<\/p>\n
The Filipina star dismantled Frech in the opening set, but her 28-year-old Polish opponent hit back by taking the second set to force a decider.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old was then broken in the first game of the third set, and she found herself trailing 1-3, but she won four of the next five games to turn it around.<\/p>\n
Eala<\/a>\u2018s win improved her record on clay in 2026 to 3-3, and it set up a second round meeting with 31st seed Wang Xinyu. The winner of that match could face No 2 seed Elena Rybakina in the third round.<\/p>\n Alexandra Eala signs up for iconic WTA event previously won by Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek & Emma Raducanu react to Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s Grand Slam boycott comments<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as\u00a0<\/span>a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Having started the Italian Open ranked 42nd, Eala\u2019s opening round win at the Foro Italico has earned her 35 points and increased her points total to 1,310.<\/p>\n This has helped Eala climb four places to world No 38 in the Live WTA Rankings.<\/p>\n Eala, who reached her career-high ranking of 29th in March, could climb as high as 35th if she progresses to the third round in Rome.<\/p>\n Ahead of her campaign in Rome, Eala said: \u201cI haven\u2019t played on many of the courts here, being that it\u2019s only my second year.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I hope by the end of this tournament, I would have played on a couple more.\u201d<\/p>\n Eala\u2019s win against Frech was her first match since she lost to Elise Mertens in the second round at the Madrid Open last month.<\/p>\n The left-hander had been due to play the Catalonia Open, a WTA 125\/Challenger event in La Bisbal d\u2019Emporda which was held last week, but she pulled out on the opening day.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Alex Eala practises with WTA star she made a complaint about earlier this year<\/a> The post Alex Eala +4 in WTA Rankings after earning battling Italian Open win<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alex Eala is set to climb the WTA Rankings after she earned a battling three-set win in her opening match at the 2026 Italian Open. In the first round at the WTA 1000 tournament in Rome, world No 42 Eala defeated 45th-ranked Magdalena Frech 6-0, 3-6, 6-4. Eala is making her second appearance at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n
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