By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Alex Eala and Coco Gauff stretched their winning run at the 2025 Italian Open after routing their Italian rivals to advance to the quarterfinals on Tuesday, May 13.
The unseeded Eala and Gauff blasted the wildcard tandem of Tyra Grant and Lisa Pagato, 6-2, 6-3, to bolster their campaign in this Women’s Tennis Association (WTA1000) event.
The Filipino-American pair started hot as they race to a commanding 3-0 lead before the hometown bets briefly showed signs of life by taking the fourth game.
But Eala, ranked No. 64, and the No. 3 Gauff were quick to regain their bearings by claiming three of the next four games for the set win.
The Italian standouts fought back in the second set by keeping it close before Eala and Gauff shattered a 3-3 count on the way to winning the match.
Eala and Gauff, however, will be put to test in their next match when they clash with Italian third seeds and 2024 Paris Olympics gold medalists Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, who survived Leylah Fernandez, a Canadian of Filipino descent, and Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, 6-4, 4-6, 10-7.
Errani, a former No. 1 doubles player, boasts of five Grand Slam doubles titles — the last at the 2014 Australian Open with Roberta Vinci. She and Paolini, however, were coming off a runner-up finish at the French Open last year.
