Eala eyes strong finish in 2026 season at Hong Kong Open

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine tennis trailblazer Alex Eala seeks a strong finish to her 2026 season at the WTA 250 Hong Kong Open in China. Following a breakthrough quarterfinal finish at the 500 Tokyo Open in Japan, Eala flies to Hong Kong for its tournament which will run from November 2 to 8. World No. 19 Eala fell to No. 13 Diana Shnaider in a hard-fought Tokyo Open quarterfinal, 6-2, 6(5)-7, 4-6, on Friday. Eala has been having a historic season with a fourth-round finish at Wimbledon last July, a maiden WTA title at D.C Open last August and a career-high rank No. 18 first achieved in the same month. The 21-year-old has been not as sharp this Asian Swing, though, with a 3-win and 4-loss record. Those losses including upsets at the hands of world No. 180 Tatiana Prozorova at Singapore Open and No. 217 Shi Han at Wuhan. Eala regained some of her mojo in Tokyo with a breakthrough quarterfinal appearance in all of her Asian Swing campaign. Battling Shnaider for nearly three hours, Eala lost steam and fell to the Russian anew after yielding to the latter in Ningbo second round last week. At the 250-tier Hong Kong Open, Eala is seeded No. 3 and...