PICKING up from where she left off, Alex Eala drew inspiration from her morale-boosting doubles triumph the previous day to subdue Andorra’s Jimenez Kasintseva 6-4, 6-4 in the women’s singles finals of the ITF Vitoria-Gasteiz meet in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain last Sunday night.
In a duel of teenaged southpaws, Eala displayed grit and a balanced all-around game to capture her first International Tennis Federation W100 plum at the Peña Vitoriana Tennis Club and complete a victorious sweep of her events in the meet held in the Basque city 362 kilometers northeast of Madrid.
It was a strong follow-up to her women’s doubles championship last Saturday with French partner Estelle Cascino as they beat Bulgaria’s Lia Karatancheva and Latvia’s Diana Marcinkevica 6-3, 2-6, 10-4.
Eala was dominant from the start and surged to a 5-1 lead in the first set before Kasintseva fought back to take the next three games and close in at 4-5.
But the Pinay teener avoided a collapse by securing the 10th game.
They fought on event terms early in the second set, with Eala taking a 2-0 lead before her foe rallied to tie the count at 3-all.
From a 4-4 count, the Pinay teener broke the Andorran in the ninth game then held her serve in the next to wrap up the match.
