Swiatek digs deep to escape another Eala shock

Iga Swiatek avoided another shock defeat against Filipina teenager Alexandra Eala by fighting back to win their Madrid Open second-round match.

World number two Swiatek, who was stunned by Eala in Miami last month, won 4-6 6-4 6-2 on the Spanish clay.

Swiatek lost in the Stuttgart quarter-finals last week and, having received a bye in the Madrid first round, produced some edgy groundstrokes in a poor first set.

A tally of 25 unforced errors indicated it was a performance nowhere near befitting of the WTA Tour’s dominant clay-court player of recent seasons.

Mistakes continued to come as the 23-year-old from Poland fell a break down early in the second set.

Swiatek, who is the reigning Madrid champion and has a host of ranking points to defend over the European clay swing, looked in serious trouble.

It felt like the same story as when 19-year-old Eala, then ranked outside the world’s top 100, beat her on the Miami hard courts.

Winning five games in a row from 4-4 in the second set swung the match in her favour and, after missing her opportunity to serve out, broke Eala’s serve for a hard-fought victory.

A telling statistic was Swiatek hitting 57 unforced errors as Eala won only 80 points in the match.

Swiatek, who is gearing up for a tilt at a fifth French Open title next month, will play Czech 31st seed Linda Noskova in the last 16.

Meanwhile, British men’s number three Cameron Norrie earned his first ATP main-draw victory since the start of March.