Filipina netter Alex Eala slipped to no. 3 in the world junior rankings this week, after losing to former world no. 1 Victoria Jimenez of Andorra who reached the finals of two tournaments over the last two weeks.
The 15-year-old Eala’s slip came after she decided to play her first women’s tournament in Castellon, Spain and lost to Jimenez.
Jimenez rose to second after she won the junior grade 1 netfest in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and placed runner-up to reigning French Open junior champion Elsa Jacquemot in the Villena juniors.
Overall, Jacquemot leads with 2,517.5 points, with Kasintseva trailing with 2,343.75 points, and Eala in third with 2,148.75 points.
Diane Parry of France is in fourth (1,967.5), followed in fifth by Ukraine’s Dana Snigur (1,930).
Her latest competition comes a week after Eala reached the quarterfinals of the junior division grade 1 tournament in Villena, Spain.
In her first professional outing, Eala pulled off a 6-1, 7-6, victory over Alba Carrillo Marin on Tuesday.
This will be Eala’s second event since making it to the French Open’s Roland Garros Junior semifinals.
Eala is set to face Russia’s Oksana Selekhmeteva in the next round of a tournament that’s held on a clay surface.
The tourney offers prize money totalling $15,000.
This will be Eala’s fourth event in 2020.
Early this year, Eala played in the W15 Monastir tournament in Tunisia in March and then qualified for W15 Melilla main draw in Spain last September.