Diana Shnaider again put an end to Alex Eala’s tournament on Friday when the Russian carved out a 2-6, 7-6 (7-5) win that denied the popular Filipino a place in the quarterfinals of the WTA 500 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.
And for the second time in two weeks, Eala-and her massive following-would have to be content with the praise that Shnaider showered the 21-year-old superstar after.
‘I feel like this match deserved to be a final. It was an insane level of tennis from both of us,’ Shnaider said after winning a second close match against Eala, counting the first one in the Ningbo Open in China just a week back.
‘I didn’t believe that I would be able to pull that win off because she (Eala) played insane.’
Shnaider, meanwhile, advanced to a second straight semifinal after her run in Ningbo. She faces Mia Pohánková for a shot at the final as Eala licks her wounds and heads to Hong Kong to wrap up her first full season on the WTA Tour.
Pohankova and Shnaider will meet for the first time on Saturday, and the hard-hitting Russian, ranked 13th in the world, seems to have an edge against the wiry 18-year-old.
A Slovakian, Pohankova scored a 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 win over Alycia Parks, and the wildcard playing in just the fourth main draw of a WTA event is in the first semifinal of her career.
The second meeting in two weeks between Eala and Shnaider took almost three hours to conclude. Shnaider got the break she needed in the third game of the third set before holding off the Filipino the rest of the way.
The match had all the trimmings of a hard effort coming from Eala, who refused to give up despite taking a medical timeout midway through the third because of an ankle issue.
She pulled to within 5-4 and even reached break point at 40-30 before Shnaider served out the match with three straight points, punctuating the victory with a massive roar.
‘I was just trying to keep reminding myself to keep fighting for every point,’ Shnaider said. ‘And as you see on the score, it was a very tight second set.’
Eala couldn’t capitalize on her impressive first-set start where she won five straight games.