The Filipino tennis talent Alexandra Eala brought one of the biggest surprises of the first day of the US Open. The 20-year-old Alexandra Eala, who is one of the rising stars of the women’s tour, knocked out the 14th-seeded Clara Tauson (Denmark) after wasting four match points before eventually prevailing by 2-1 (6:3, 2:6, 7:6(11)) in two hours and 38 minutes of play.
This made Alexandra Eala the first woman from the Philippines to win a Grand Slam singles match in the Open era.
Also making history for Asia was qualifier Janice Tjen of Indonesia, who eliminated 24th-seeded Veronika Kudermetova (Russia) after 2-1 (6:4, 4:6, 6:4), becoming the first tennis player from her country to win a main draw match at a Grand Slam tournament in 22 years.
“I’m proud to be able to do this for my country. I hope my participation here will inspire more children to play tennis and believe that they can be here too”, said the qualifier Janice Tjen.
In other first-round matches, 25th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) defeated Wang Xiyu of China by 2-0 (6:4, 6:3), and Lulu Sun (New Zealand) beat Camila Osorio (Colombia) by 2-1 (6:4, 2:6, 6:0).
Tenth-seeded American tennis talent Emma Navarro defeated Wang Yafan (China) by 2-0 (7:6(9), 6:3), while 16th-seeded Belinda Bencic (Switzerland) eliminated qualifier Zhang Shuai (China) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:3).
Seventh-seeded Jasmine Paolini of Italy defeated Australian qualifier Destanee Aiava by 2-0 (6:2, 7:6(4)), while the US Open finalist in the tournament in 2012, 2013 and 2020 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus defeated qualifier Hina Inoue (USA) by 2-0 (7:6(0), 6:4).
