MELBOURNE, Australia — Alex Eara of the Philippines was unable to journey a wave of raucous cheers to victory in her Australian Open primary draw debut, falling brief in a see-saw battle with American Alicia Parks.
The 20-year-old fan favourite had nearly all the viewers on Courtroom 6 cheering her each transfer, however in the end had no solutions to cease the facility and aggression of her skilled opponent, who gained 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 in an hour and 56 minutes.
Ira, who has been eradicated within the qualifying levels of the earlier three Australian Opens, enters this yr’s event at Melbourne Park as probably the most talked about and extremely touted gamers on the ladies’s tour, because of her breakthrough into 2025.
It is actually silly to place Ela on courtroom 6… https://t.co/YDejRTNZ8K
— Jose Morgado (@josemorgado) January 19, 2026
Final yr, she made a memorable semi-final look on the Miami Open with wins over Grand Slam champions Jelena Ostapenko and Madison Keys, gained the Challenger event in Guadalajara and moved into the world’s high 50. The season bought off to a robust begin, reaching the semi-finals of the ASB Traditional in Auckland and profitable the Kooyong Traditional.
The Rafa Nadal Academy expertise began the primary spherical match brightly, breaking Parks in a marathon opener that lasted 12 minutes and had eight break level possibilities. She performed the subsequent 5 video games in a row, taking simply 22 minutes to take the primary set.
However Parks turned up the depth on the high of the second body and began to make the pictures he had missed early on. The 25-year-old from Atlanta gained 12 of his subsequent 17 matches, defeating the group favourite and qualifying for the second spherical of the event.
Parks will now face Czech Republic’s Karolina Muchova, who defeated Romania’s Jacqueline Cristian in straight units on Monday afternoon.
Extra to return…
