MANILA – The seeds continue to fall against Filipino teen sensation Alex Eala at the W60 Madrid tournament in Spain, where she caused a quarterfinal upset of No. 3 seed Jaimee Fourlis of Australia, 6-1, 6-4, to reach the semifinals of the $60,000 ITF event.

En route to the quarters, Eala ousted qualifier Lia Karatancheva of Bulgaria in the first round, 6-4, 6-4, then dispatched No. 11 seed Daniela Seguel of Chile in the second round, 6-1, 6-2.

In the third round, she improved her head-to-head against No. 7 seed Yvonne Cavalle-Reimers of Spain to 2-0 with a resolute comeback, 0-6, 6-2, 7-5.

Scheduled second on Friday at the Fernando Granero outdoor hard court of Club Deportivo Brezo Osuna, the quarterfinal featuring WTA World No. 413 Eala and WTA World No. 182 Fourlis ran for 1 hour and 8 minutes.

Two-time ITF singles champion Eala, 17, won the first five games that were all sealed with forehand errors by the 22-year-old Fourlis, who won two of her seven ITF singles titles this month.

In the third game, Eala got out of deuce by holding serve while in the fifth game, she hit a smooth forehand drop shot to advance to 40-0.

The following game went to deuce with Fourlis on serve, and the Australian managed to get on the scoreboard via a netted backhand by Eala.

Serving for the set at 5-1, Eala fired an ace to be at 30-0 and earned three set points courtesy of a backhand approach shot winner.

The lefty took the first set with a forehand approach shot winner, 6-1.

Fourlis aimed for the rebound by taking a 2-0 lead in the second set, to which Eala responded by winning the next three games.

The Australian leveled at 3-3 with a break of serve, and Eala broke back with a forehand winner.

The eighth game, which had three deuces, went in favor of Fourlis after Eala committed a double fault.

Eala bounced back to be at 40-0 with Fourlis on serve, and she confidently hit a forehand down-the-line return of serve that gave her the chance to serve for the match at 5-4.

With three match points, Eala fought off some resistance from Fourlis who went from 0-40 to 30-40.

After firing a backhand cross-court shot for the win, 6-4, Eala roared and raised her fist upon booking a spot in the semifinals against either No. 5 seed Carole Monnet of France or No. 16 seed Katherine Sebov of Canada.

Aside from joining the W60 Madrid singles event, Eala competed with En Shuo Liang of Chinese Taipei in the doubles draw, where they achieved a quarterfinal finish.

A player of the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, Eala is a former Juniors World No. 2 who won the girls’ doubles titles at the 2020 Australian Open and 2021 Roland Garros.

She made her debut in the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam, winning the bronze in singles, women’s team event, and mixed doubles.

• Alex Eala ousts 7th seed to enter W60 Madrid quarterfinals
• Tennis: Alex Eala upsets No. 11 seed to reach W60 Madrid 3rd round

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