{"id":25256,"date":"2026-06-20T08:12:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T08:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/20\/tennis-wta-vanda-pharmaceuticals-berlin-tennis-open-2026-eala-downs-svitolina-tennismajors-com\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T08:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T08:12:50","slug":"tennis-wta-vanda-pharmaceuticals-berlin-tennis-open-2026-eala-downs-svitolina-tennismajors-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/20\/tennis-wta-vanda-pharmaceuticals-berlin-tennis-open-2026-eala-downs-svitolina-tennismajors-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis, WTA \u2013 VANDA Pharmaceuticals Berlin Tennis Open 2026: Eala downs Svitolina &#8211; tennismajors.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back-to-back top-10 wins and a hand-over-face moment of disbelief: Alexandra Eala (No 35) beat Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-4 to reach the Berlin semi-finals on debut, the sixth top-10 win of her career at just 21.<br \/>Filipino Alexandra Eala backed up her stunning upset of Elena Rybakina with another, beating Ukrainian sixth seed Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-4 on Friday evening to reach the semi-finals of the Berlin Tennis Open on her tournament debut.<br \/>The 21-year-old, ranked No 35, has been the story of the week. Having knocked out second seed Rybakina in the previous round, she claimed a second top-10 scalp in succession \u2013 the sixth such win of her young career \u2013 and reached the fourth tour-level semi-final of her career. It also moved her to the brink of a notable feat: beating multiple top-10 players at a single event for the second time, after she took out Iga Swiatek and Madison Keys at Miami in 2025.<br \/>Against Svitolina, Eala controlled the match from the front, taking the opening set 6-3 and holding her nerve in the second to close it out 6-4. She had reached the last eight by beating last week&#8217;s Queen&#8217;s Club champion Donna Vekic (7-5, 6-4) before her victory over Rybakina, a run that began on a grass-court swing in which she won the WTA 125 title in Birmingham.<br \/>Eala was warm in her assessment of an opponent she has long admired. &#8220;Elina is a huge fighter and I&#8217;ve seen it many times. I&#8217;ve been watching her since I was a kid, so to be able to compete with her today is such an honour,&#8221; she said. &#8220;She&#8217;s a mother, and I find her to act with such elegance and strength. I&#8217;m really lucky to have had this match today.<br \/>Svitolina, ranked No 8, had reached the quarter-finals by beating German Eva Lys (6-3, 6-2) and Russian Anna Kalinskaya, who retired when trailing 6-1, 4-1. Eala will next face Czech eighth seed Linda Noskova for a place in the final.<br \/>In the other semi-final, Eala or Noskova will meet the winner of a heavyweight all-decided-on-the-day clash between top seed Aryna Sabalenka and American third seed Jessica Pegula. Sabalenka reached the last four for a second straight year by recovering from 6-2, 4-0 down against Nikola Bartunkova to win 2-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4 in two hours and 23 minutes, a third comeback from a set down this season.<br \/>Pegula, the 2024 Berlin champion, came through an all-American quarter-final against Madison Keys 7-6 (5), 7-6 (8) to move 3-2 ahead in their head-to-head. Sabalenka leads Pegula 9-3 overall but has never gone beyond the semi-finals in five previous visits to Berlin.<br \/>Philippines<br \/>Ukraine<br \/><span id=\"email-notes\">Your email address will not be published.<\/span> <span class=\"required-field-message\">Required fields are marked <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/span><br \/><label for=\"comment\">Comment <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/label> <textarea id=\"comment\" name=\"comment\" cols=\"45\" rows=\"8\" maxlength=\"65525\" required><\/textarea><br \/><label for=\"author\">Name <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/label> <input id=\"author\" name=\"author\" type=\"text\" value=\"\" size=\"30\" maxlength=\"245\" autocomplete=\"name\" required \/><br \/><label for=\"email\">Email <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/label> <input id=\"email\" name=\"email\" type=\"email\" value=\"\" size=\"30\" maxlength=\"100\" aria-describedby=\"email-notes\" autocomplete=\"email\" required \/><br \/><label for=\"url\">Website<\/label> <input id=\"url\" name=\"url\" type=\"url\" value=\"\" size=\"30\" maxlength=\"200\" autocomplete=\"url\" \/><br \/><input type=\"text\" name=\"NGRmNmQ0Y2ZCNGRmNmQ0Y2Zl\" value=\"\"><br \/> \t\t\t\t<label for=\"cbba9bcd2ff45e8d3fce2\">Comment for robots<\/label> \t\t\t\t<textarea name=\"NGRmNmQ0Y2ZJwYwYGN1ETNyc\" id=\"cbba9bcd2ff45e8d3fce2\" placeholder=\"You are human!\">Please empty this comment field to prove you&#039;re human.<\/textarea> \t\t\t\t<script>(a=>{let b=document.getElementById(a.i),c=document.getElementById(a.w);b&&c&&(b.value=\"\",c.style.display=\"none\")})({\"w\":\"a8e00fff0be6bcb9e8230f\",\"i\":\"cbba9bcd2ff45e8d3fce2\"});<\/script> \t\t\t<br \/><label for=\"a8e00fff0be6bcb9e8230f7b\">Website<\/label><input type=\"text\" name=\"a8e00fff0be6bcb9e8230f7b\" value=\"\"><\/p>\n<style>#a8e00fff0be6bcb9e8230f7b{display:none}<\/style>\n<p><input name=\"submit\" type=\"submit\" id=\"submit\" class=\"submit\" value=\"Post Comment\" \/> <input type='hidden' name='comment_post_ID' value='853661' id='comment_post_ID'> <input type='hidden' name='comment_parent' id='comment_parent' value='0'> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMihAJBVV95cUxQcGRJWDVPUmhrWE4wc0IwZzhqZV9TcUctS0xxS29adHhrVWhIRDJnSVRPbFY1eXhQTkJLb29na1lFVVMxcU5KaU9hZWdaSS1pY0FxWk9tODdPSU5RQ2NOREdVbWxCeWhaMGh5YlFVOTRLbl9YeXFUU21oXzd4a0hENE9JNzJaYXRqZVZFY1haajM2cWsySU1iNzNRU0luZkZGRHdoSGdEeFVHajgtMUVVQXd4Ui1nWW94ZmozVzJPVk9TbDNwYmpNYXRpeEZmVzlGRlpqY3JWcGNMZl9VdS1YNDIwQ2tYMDZZMUhqdmplaF9NZXpUV2dvbUFfcURwN3hiblhFZQ?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back-to-back top-10 wins and a hand-over-face moment of disbelief: Alexandra Eala (No 35) beat Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-4 to reach the Berlin semi-finals on debut, the sixth top-10 win of her career at just 21.Filipino Alexandra Eala backed up her stunning upset of Elena Rybakina with another, beating Ukrainian sixth seed Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-4 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}