Alex Eala and Venus Williams, for a brief moment early Friday in Manila, looked like they might have another doubles trick up their sleeves.
They did not.
The Filipino rising star and seven-time Grand Slam singles champion were sent packing, losing to Japan’s Eri Kato and Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova, 4-6, 3-6, in the opening round of the National Bank Open in Toronto.
The partnership had worked beautifully enough in Bad Homburg in June, where Eala and Williams reached the quarterfinals. Toronto, however, offered a less forgiving sequel.
With center court buzzing at the sight of the unlikely pair, Kato and Samsonova quickly established control, racing to a 2-0 lead. Eala held to get her team on the board, and the Filipina and Williams gradually found their footing.
Trailing 2-4, they broke back to level the first set at 4-4, briefly turning the match into the kind of tug-of-war their chemistry had promised.
But the comeback needed one more pull.
At 5-4, Williams was broken, allowing Kato and Samsonova to close out the set in 38 minutes.
The second set was even less charitable. Eala and Williams fell behind 0-4 before staging another mini-resurrection, fighting back to 2-4. This time, Kato and Samsonova refused to leave the door open, closing out the match 6-3.
The crowd supplied plenty of noise. It just could not supply a third-set encore.
The doubles detour ends for Eala, but the singles mission continues against Caty McNally.
Revenge, however, will have to wait. Eala would have had a far juicier storyline had Linda Nosková been waiting across the net. The Czech ended her Berlin run in June, beating her 6-2, 6-4 in the semifinals. Instead, unseeded McNally arrived by knocking out reigning Wimbledon champion and world No. 7 Nosková.
There is still a curious subplot. Eala has won only once in 13 meetings against Czech players, an awkward blemish on an otherwise rapidly rising résumé. Toronto now offers her another chance to make old numbers look like ancient history.
The match, scheduled for Saturday morning in Manila and Friday in Toronto, will give the Filipino diaspora another chance to fill the stands and make its presence felt. Toronto organizers have promised to bring back adobo on the menu and, perhaps, add some lumpia to the mix.
