Italian netters Tyra Grant and Lisa Pigato will be the next opponents of Filipina star Alexandra Eala and and superstar partner Coco Gauff in the women’s doubles’ second round of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia’s Tennis Tournament, also known as the 2025 Italian Open.
Also entered as wildcards, Grant and Pigato will get into a meeting with Eala and Gauff after they eliminated Kazakh bet Anna Kalinina and the Russian Irina Khromacheva, 2-6, 6-4 10-5, in an hour and 27 minutes of play.
It took Eala and Gauff a total of 59 minutes to get past Fanny Stollar of Hungary and Alexandra Panova of Russia, 6-3, 6-1, in the Round of 32 on Saturday evening (Manila time) in Rome.
This allowed Eala and Gauff to advance to the women’s doubles’ second round.
Eala, making her doubles debut at the WTA 1000 level with Gauff, got out of 2-all deadlock with Stollar and Panova, and took the next three match points for a 5-3 edge in the first set.
Eala’s doubles’ triumph with Gauff comes after she suffered an early exit in the women’s singles of the tournament, following an 0-6, 1-6, loss to Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk.
Hours earlier, Gauff won her first meeting with 18-year-old Canadian qualifier Victoria Mboko, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1, in her women’s singles encounter.
The pair scored on two aces, and made 20 points out of 25 first serves.
After conceding the opening game of the second set, Eala and Gauff quickly turned the tables around on Stollar and Panova, and won six straight games.
The 21-year-old Gauff is a six-year tour veteran with a Grand Slam title to her name — the 2024 French Open doubles.
Defending champions Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, playing on home soil eased out Jiang Xinyu and Wu Fang-Hsien, 6-3, 6-4, in other matches.
The top-seed Canadian pair Erin Routliffe and Gabriela Dabrowski prevailed over Romanian Monica Niculescu and Polish teammate Katarzyna Piter, 6-4, 6-1.
