Hong Kong Open Round-Up: Alexandra Eala suffers painful final set loss to Victoria Mboko in thrilling clash of the future

Alexandra Eala didn't manage to stem the comeback of Victoria Mboko as the Filipino rising star faced the Canadian Open champion in a clash we could be seeing a lot in the future at the Hong Kong Open.

Mboko didn't win a match after sealing the Canadian Open until last week and now she is into another tour level Quarter-Final and will face off against Anna Kalinskaya tomorrow. Eala was 4-1 up in the decider against Mboko but couldn't get the job done. She lost out 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in favour of the victor.

Eala defeated Katie Boulter in the first round and looked set to advance further after she sealed the opening set against Mboko on Thursday. However she was unable to hold on to her lead.

She was 4-1 up with a break of serve however she then went on to lose five consecutive games and the match to Mboko. While the fighting spirit of Mboko has to be admired. The inability of Eala to win the match from the position she was in has to be a concern as she is either on top of her game or suffers poor losses so very much still has a lot more to do to get to the point where her talent from earlier in the season pointed her towards..

“I want to first congratulate Alex for an amazing match. It’s never easy to play one of your friends, and I’ve known her for such a long time so that made it a little bit emotional," said Mboko afterwards on court.

“But I also want to thank everyone who came to support today. I know there’s so many Filipinos here who came to support Alex, and this is what this sport is all about. And I love the support you gave today, and it made the match so much more intense and super tough for me.

“So I think I really had to fight for every single point and I think it was an unbelievable match so thank you.”

“It feels unbelievable. It’s my first Asia swing, my first time in Hong Kong, so I hope to go for it all, and I really wish to push really hard until the end of the tournament.”

For Eala, it is technically the end to her season. Albeit she could still technically play WTA 125k tournaments for the rest of the season in a bid to be ready for January.

Other results in Hong Kong saw Anna Kalinskaya who will now face Mboko continue her good run of form which was only halted last time out by injury. This time no such problems yet as she saw off Shuai Zhang 6-1, 6-1 with pictures on her socials afterwards showing her all smiles. Belinda Bencic also is still playing after winning Tokyo last week. She saw off Yafan Wang 6-2, 6-2 to also reach the Quarter-Finals.

While surprise Japanese package Himeno Sakatsume who is ranked World No.228 and saw off Sofia Kenin at the start of the week saw off Eunice Chong, the local qualifier 6-2, 6-1 to book her spot in the latter stages for the first time. But she now faces the Aussie ace Maya Joint who will be favourite to face either Mboko or Kalinskaya in the semi-finals.