Alex Eala’s return to the WTA Tour lasted barely a night.
The Filipino star, seeded 13th at the Wuhan Open despite slipping to No. 19 in the latest WTA rankings, fell to Chinese qualifier Shi Han, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, on Monday night at Dongfeng-Voyah Center Court.
For a while, Eala looked to be heading comfortably toward the second round of the WTA 1000 event, the final tournament of the season at that level. As last year, when Eala entered Wuhan as a qualifier, she didn’t get past the first round.
The opening set was a bruising affair, with little separating the two through the first 15 games. Eala finally broke at 5-4, fighting off a 40-0 deficit before winning five straight points to steal the set.
Eala led 3-2 in the second, seemingly holding the momentum and a ticket to the round of 32.
Then the match slipped away.
Shi, ranked No. 217 in the world, found another gear as Eala struggled to land her first serve and began spraying errors. The Chinese qualifier won four straight games to take the second set, then stretched her streak to seven by opening the decider with a 3-0 lead.
Eala tried to claw back, trimming the deficit to 3-5, but the comeback never quite caught fire. Shi held her nerve, and her serve, to close out the upset in 2 hours, 27 minutes.
The defeat was a particularly costly one for Eala, who entered Wuhan as the No. 13 seed even as her ranking had dropped six places to No. 19.
For Shi, meanwhile, it was a breakthrough night. She had never beaten a Top 100 player before reaching Wuhan, knocking out Peyton Stearns and Kamilla Rakhimova in qualifying. Now she had her first Top 20 victory, and her first WTA 1000 main-draw win.
Eala ran out of gas, ideas, and time.
Shi, meanwhile, found all three.
