MANILA – Alexandra “Alex” Eala of the Philippines is out of the W60 Hamburg in Germany after losing to No. 1 seed Ysaline Bonaventure of Belgium in the second round on Thursday.

The 17-year-old Eala, with a current career-high WTA ranking of World No. 248, was bested by the 28-year-old and WTA World No. 118 Belgian, 4-6, 0-6, at the indoor hard court of the Hamburger Tennis-Verband.

Prior to competing in Germany, Bonaventure qualified for two WTA 250 events: the Tallinn Open in Estonia, where she ousted Top 40 players American Shelby Rogers and Swiss Jil Teichmann before losing to home bet and then WTA World No. 4 Anett Kontaveit, and the Transylvania Open in Romania, where she lost in the second round to then World No. 45 Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine.

In Hamburg, the first set of the second-round match between left-handers Eala and Bonaventure was a slugfest marked by many service breaks, with each holding serve just once as they leveled at 4-4.

Bonaventure broke for the fourth time to serve for the set at 5-4, but was faced with two break points after Eala forced the 10th game to deuce.

The Belgian went on to claim the set on her third set point, 6-4, with a brisk forehand winner down the line.

Eala, who eked out a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Ekaterina Kazionova of Russia in the opening round, then called for a medical timeout prior to the second set.

At 0-2, Eala failed to convert two game points in the third game and one break point in the fourth game.

The 2022 US Open Juniors girls’ singles champion continued to trail at 0-4, after which Bonaventure broke to love, 5-0, to serve for the match.

The Belgian with 12 ITF women’s singles titles punched her ticket to the quarterfinals, 6-0, courtesy of a long forehand by Eala, the 2021 W15 Manacor and 2022 W25 Chiang Rai champion.

The $60,000 ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour event is part of the Hamburg Ladies & Gents Cup, which also features an ATP Challenger Category 80 tournament.

In the doubles draw, Treat Huey of the Philippines and Max Schnur of the United States are the No. 1 seeds, and they are into the semifinals slated on Friday against No. 3 seeds Artem Sitak of New Zealand and Sem Verbeek of the Netherlands.

Huey and Schnur prevailed over Duje Ajdukovic of Croatia and Jonas Forejtek of Czech Republic in the first round, 6-0, 6-1, and Benjamin Hassan of Lebanon and Jelle Sels of the Netherlands in the quarterfinals, 6-1, 7-6(4).

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