Alex Eala Storms Past Mary Stoiana to Reach US Open Second Round
Alex Eala needed just 78 minutes to open her US Open campaign, sweeping American qualifier Mary Stoiana 6-1, 6-2 at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Flushing Meadows on Tuesday, September 1 (Wednesday, September 2 in Manila).
Five Games Before Stoiana Got On the Board
Eala broke Stoiana twice in the opening set and raced out to a 5-0 lead before her opponent finally held serve to get on the scoreboard at 1-5. The 17th seed closed out the set 6-1, then had to work harder in the second, falling behind 1-2 before Stoiana settled in. Eala answered with four straight games to go up 5-2. Accounts differ on how the final game went: Philstar reported Eala fought back from 30-0 down to hold serve and close out the match at deuce, while The Summit Express described a break of Stoiana’s serve to finish it.
Stoiana had six break points across the match and converted none of them. Eala put away four of her own eight break-point chances and won 78 percent of her first-serve points.
The Player On the Other Side of the Net
Stoiana, a 23-year-old ranked No. 122, was playing her first Grand Slam main draw match after winning three matches in qualifying to reach it. She played college tennis at Texas A&M University from 2021 to 2025, where she was named the top college player by the Honda Sports Awards in 2024, before turning to the tour full time this year.
They had crossed paths once before. In August 2024, at an ITF W100 event in Landisville, Pennsylvania, Eala beat Stoiana 7-5, 6-2 after trailing 5-4 in the opening set.
What’s Next
Eala moves on to face Ukraine’s Oleksandra Oliynykova, the World No. 46 who beat American wild card Reese Brantmeier 6-4, 6-4 in her own first-round match. It puts Eala back in the round where Spain’s Cristina Bucsa ended her US Open run a year ago. She reached the fourth round at Wimbledon in July, upsetting Poland’s Iga Swiatek along the way, and won her first WTA Tour-level title in Washington D.C. this summer, beating Jessica Pegula, Naomi Osaka, and Elina Svitolina in the same run.
Eala credited Stoiana’s form after the match, describing the early stretch of the second set as the toughest part of the night. “Every exchange has its own challenges, especially the start of the second set,” she said.
