Diana Shnaider beat Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva 7-5, 7-6(4) on Tuesday, locking in a Round of 16 meeting with Alex Eala at the WTA 500 Ningbo Open.
Eala, world No. 20, will face the No. 6 seed and world No. 13 on Thursday, 22 Oct, with a quarterfinal place at stake. It is their first tour-level meeting, and Shnaider is a fellow left-hander, Inquirer reports. For readers in the Philippines, ABS-CBN News lists the match for 1 p.m. Manila time at the Yinzhou International Tennis Center.
Eala got here by beating France's Diane Parry 6-3, 6-1 on Monday in 1 hour, 17 minutes. From 3-3, she won seven straight games. The win snapped a three-match losing streak that included opening-match losses in Singapore and Wuhan. It was her 34th tour-level win of 2026, the WTA reports.
Shnaider needed 2 hours, 26 minutes to get past Putintseva, per ABS-CBN News, and saved five set points along the way, according to the title of a WTA video. It was her second straight week beating Putintseva, Inquirer reports. At the Wuhan Open, Shnaider, 22, reached the quarterfinals. She beat Karolina Muchova before losing to Jelena Ostapenko, Inquirer and GMA News report. GMA News adds that she has five WTA titles and a career-high ranking of No. 11.
A win would send Eala to the quarterfinals, where she could face Iva Jovic or Jasmine Paolini, according to ABS-CBN News.
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