The Coco Gauff and Alex Eala doubles partnership marched on at the Italian Open as the former revealed how they ended up playing together in Rome.<\/p>\n
Gauff<\/a> is a former women\u2019s doubles world No 1 as she won the 2024 French Open alongside Katerina Siniakova while she also finished runner-up at Roland Garros in 2022 when she partnered Jessica Pegula and at the 2021 US Open with Caty McNally.<\/p>\n The 21-year-old enjoyed a lengthy and successful stint as Pegula\u2019s partner, but that partnership ended last year and Gauff has played with several different WTA stars since then.<\/p>\n Eala<\/a>, meanwhile, is still new on the scene as the 19-year-old hasn\u2019t played too many top-level doubles matches, but she does have success in the format as she won the 2020 Australian Open girls\u2019 doubles and the 2021 French Open girls\u2019 doubles.<\/p>\n And the two exciting talents on the WTA Tour decided to team up at the WTA 1000 event in the Italian capital.<\/p>\n They started with a straight set win over Alexandra Panova and Fanny Stoller in the first round and followed it up with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Italian wildcards Tyra Grant and Lisa Pigato.<\/p>\n But who initiated the partnership?<\/p>\n \u201cShe DM\u2019d me on Instagram. She slid in my DMs and asked me to play. I was like, \u2018Sure, why not?’\u201d, Gauff said of Eala.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really didn\u2019t know each other, honestly, before Madrid. I said hi to her for the first time in Madrid or maybe Miami, we may have briefly said hello. I figured she would be nice so I was just hoping she would be, you know?<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, she\u2019s such a nice person. When there\u2019s people finally my age on tour, I\u2019m glad to interact.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it was a good opportunity to play doubles but also have a relaxed vibe with another player. I\u2019m super happy to play with her, and obviously she\u2019s a killer in doubles: two junior Slams and probably some future ones too.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gauff-Eala team will next face the formidable seeds Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini for a place in the semi-final.<\/p>\n Coco Gauff makes feelings clear on Iga Swiatek\u2019s hopes of winning the French Open<\/a><\/p>\n WTA Rankings: Iga Swiatek\u2019s unique feat set to continue after Italian Open exit<\/a><\/p>\n 2023 US Open winner Gauff was also asked about Eala\u2019s breakthrough this year.<\/p>\n The teenager caused several upsets at the Miami Open when she beat three Grand Slam winners in Jelena Ostapenko, Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek en route to reaching the semi-final.<\/p>\n With that run, she became the highest-ranked Filipina in WTA Tour history as she surged into the top 80.<\/p>\n \u201cShe seems to be handling it super well. There\u2019s ups and downs in the sport, but you realise that the media is there to kind of paint that story and make it more interesting, but that shouldn\u2019t be added pressure or anything like that,\u201d the American said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe seems chill. She seems like she\u2019s working hard, so I don\u2019t have any advice for her just because she seems relaxed. The only thing I did tell her was that doubles helped me a lot in that space, having some time on court where it\u2019s a little less stressful. So, I encouraged her to play when she could.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Coco Gauff and Alex Eala set up exciting match in Rome as American reveals how partnership started<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Coco Gauff and Alex Eala doubles partnership marched on at the Italian Open as the former revealed how they ended up playing together in Rome. Gauff is a former women\u2019s doubles world No 1 as she won the 2024 French Open alongside Katerina Siniakova while she also finished runner-up at Roland Garros in 2022 […]<\/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-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","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=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA News<\/h3>\n