If rankings decided tennis matches, Alex Eala would have been shopping for quarterfinal plans by Thursday night.
Instead, World No. 180 Tatiana Prozorova had other ideas.
The Russian stunned third-seeded Eala, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, in a bruising three-hour, nine-minute Round of 16 battle at the Singapore Open, turning what looked like a routine ranking mismatch into the biggest win of her career. It was Prozorova’s first victory over a Top 20 opponent.
Eala looked in control after recovering from an early 1-3 deficit to take the opening set. She then stretched her lead to 4-2 in the second, seemingly putting the match on a much shorter itinerary.
Prozorova, however, had no intention of allowing the rankings determine her fate.
She clawed back to win three straight games and move ahead, 5-4. Eala, urged on by a crowd heavily populated by Filipino fans, pulled level at 5-5. But Prozorova held serve, then broke Eala to steal the set, 7-5, and send the match into a decider.
The third set offered Eala another opening. Prozorova raced to a 2-0 lead, only for the Filipina to answer with three consecutive games and take a 3-2 advantage.
That was the last time Eala would win a game.
Prozorova rattled off the next four games, sealing the upset with back-to-back down-the-line returns and booking a quarterfinal meeting with China’s Wang Xinyu.
The 22-year-old Russian has been superb in Singapore tournament backed by BNP Paribas, reaching the quarterfinals in both singles and doubles. She had already survived a three-set battle with Belgium’s Sofia Costoulas, 5-7, 7-6, 6-2, to set up her meeting with Eala.
The numbers told part of the story. Prozorova hit four aces to Eala’s one and converted seven of 12 break points, compared with Eala’s six of 17. She also kept her double faults down, committing three to Eala’s seven.
Singapore ends abruptly for Eala, giving her extra time to go to her next stop—Japan. Eala had decided to skip the China Open, a mandatory WTA 1000 event where absence usually mean a stiff fine and zero-ranking points penalty, to wear the Philippine colors at the Asian Games. There, an Asian Games gold medal could earn her a passport to the Los Angeles Olympics.
