Alex Eala lost her steam against her seeded rival in the quarterfinals of the W75 Porto in Portugal on Friday, Feb. 23.

Alex Eala lost her steam against her seeded rival in the quarterfinals of the W75 Porto in Portugal on Friday, Feb. 23.

The 18-year-old unseeded Filipina recovered from an opening-set stumble but failed to sustain her momentum as she bowed to second pick Anna Bondar of Hungary, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-1.

This was the second time that Eala lost to Bondar in the ITF circuit. They first met in the first qualifying round at the Matua Madrid Open in Spain in 2022 with the Hungarian winning 6-0, 6-0.

Before her defeat in the $75,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) event, Eala opened her bid in style with straight-sets victories over Cyprus’ Raluca Georgiana Serban, 6-4, 6-2, and Ukraine’s Katarina Zavatska, 6-0, 6-3.

It was a double blackeye for Eala as she also lost her quarters doubles match with British partner Ali Collins, 6-3, 6-4, at the expense of Great Britain’s Alicia Barnett and Germany’s Anna-Len Friedsam.

She and Collins started their campaign with a hard-fought 7-6 (3), 4-6, 11-9 win over India’s Vasanti Shinde and Romania’s Anca Alexia Todoni in the opening round.