Filipino-French tandem Alex Eala and Estelle Cascino remain undefeated as a duo, ruling the W100 Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain to claim their second ITF doubles title

MANILA, Philippines – Alex Eala and Estelle Cascino showed their partnership has become even more lethal as the Filipino-French partners captured their second doubles crown in the ITF W100 Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain on Saturday, July 20.

Seeded No. 3, Eala and Cascino proved steadier when it mattered to ward off the tough challenge from Lia Karatancheva of Bulgaria and Diana Marcinkevica of Latvia, 6-3, 2-6, 10-4, in the women’s doubles final at the Peña Vitoriana Tenis Club.

The first time Eala and Cascino of France teamed up in the ITF W75 Croissy-Beaubourg last March, they were an unseeded pair who surprised the field and copped the championship after upsetting the second seeds in the quarterfinal and the top seeds in the finale. 

This week in Spain, Eala and Cascino showed their partnership has become deadlier as they waylaid all their opponents in straight sets en route to a spot in the championship round. 

The unseeded Karatancheva and Marcinkevica, though, were looking to duplicate their performance in the semifinal where they stunned top seeds Eden Silva of Great Britain and Valeriya Strakhova of Ukraine, 3-6, 6-3, 12-10.

Eala and Cascino would have none of it. 

They buckled down to work early by opening a 4-2 lead in the first set, breaking serve twice to sandwich the fourth game where Cascino dropped her serve. They breezed through the set the rest of the way to win, 6-3.

But Karatancheva and Marcinkevica came back in the second set with bad intentions. They broke Eala twice and Cascino once to score a breakaway victory, 6-2, and extend the final to an appropriate conclusion, a super tiebreak. 

Yet the deciding set proved anti-climactic as it was anything but close. From 1-1, Eala and Cascino scored the next seven points to pull away, 8-1. The closest they allowed their Bulgarian and Latvian foes was at 9-4. 

It was all over after an hour and 12 minutes as Eala and Cascino remained undefeated as a duo and with their second ITF doubles trophies in tow.

Eala will have a chance for a double victory celebration as she also made the final of the singles competition after a straight-set victory over Maria Jose Portillo Ramirez of Mexico, 6-2, 6-1, also on Saturday. 

The fifth-seeded Eala never dropped her serve the entire match while breaking Portillo Ramirez five times. 

Eala, who just hit a career-high ranking at world No. 155,  has not dropped a set this entire week in singles. 

And Eala looks to sustain that in the women’s singles finale on Sunday at 6 pm, Philippine time, in a battle featuring a tantalizing matchup between two promising teen prospects. 

The 19-year-old Filipina will face off against 18-year-old Victoria Jiménez Kasintseva of Andorra, who posted an impressive 6-2, 6-2 win over second seed Jessika Ponchet of France in the semifinal.

While Eala is a former US Open girls singles champion and former No. 2  junior player in the world, Jiménez Kasintseva won the Australian Open girls singles and became the No. 1 junior player when she was just 14 years old. 

Both Eala and Jiménez Kasintseva have won four ITF singles titles apiece and will be quite familiar with each other’s game. 

The two teamed up as doubles partners in the 2021 ITF W25 Madrid where they reached the quarterfinals.

Alcantara cops doubles title

Over in Thailand, the Philippines’ top men’s doubles player Francis Casey Alcantara and Thai teen standout Maximus Jones won the championship of the ITF World Tour M6

The duo defeated Adil Kalyanpur and Vishnu Vardhan of India, 2-6, 7-5, 10-8, in the final also on Saturday at the Walailak University Tennis Centre in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. 

This is the second title in two weeks and third straight finals appearance in three weeks for the 32-year-old Alcantara and the 19-year-old Jones. They emerged champions of last week’s ITF World Tour M5 at the same venue. – Rappler.com