Defiant Tatiana Prozorova flips the script, booting Alexandra Eala out after three-hour marathon at S’pore Open

SINGAPORE – Soon after Tatiana Prozorova served to open the round-of-16 match at the Singapore Tennis Open Presented by BNP Paribas, it was evident that a broad demographic within the throng had come to support her opponent, Alexandra Eala.

In the 4,000 capacity OCBC Arena that was packed to the rafters, there was a wide array of voices – men, women, young girls and young boys – all taking turns to sing the same refrain: “Let’s go, Alex, let’s go”.

But there was one voice that rang out just before the darling of the Philippines lined up to serve for her fifth set point of the first set that captured the thick tension in the air.

“Finish it,” he shrieked, pulling the “it” that screeched like sharp claws across a chalkboard.

And to the consternation of the partisan crowd, it was the loveably defiant Prozorova who eventually did just that – taking three hours and nine minutes – to run out 4-6, 7-5 6-3 in what was a roller coaster of a scrappy battle.

This match pitted world No. 180 Prozorova against the darling of the Philippines, perched 162 spots above, but played out nothing like a David-versus-Goliath affair some may have expected.

Eala needed seven set points to close out the 66-minute first set, 6-4, with Prozorova visibly frustrated, alternating between standing petulantly still, tossing her racket in the air and dropping it to the ground.

Even in her frustration, Prozorova’s defiant streak was evident for all to see – jaws dropped as the Russian dropped to the ground to do a couple of push-ups in the midst of battling to stay in the first set.

The second set ran even longer – 69 minutes – and Prozorova grew in her defiance.

She did not flinch when a ball boy threw her a ball she did not ask for, recovered from lining up to serve to the wrong side of the court, even shook her hips and swung her hands from side to side – in rhythm – as another fervent Eala fan sang “Go, Alex Eala!”.

She took the set 7-5.

As Prozorova grew from strength to strength in the third, a section of the crowd started to get behind her in yet another topsy-turvy set.

At 4-3 in the third, Prozorova broke Eala’s serve without any response from the Philippine star, raising her left fist to the sky after each point.

It was a forehand cross-court winner with which she closed out the match, and Prozorova spread her hands out wide, staring at the ceiling of the OCBC Arena, perhaps taking in the moment – her first victory over a player ranked in the top 20.

“I don’t have any words right now to describe my emotions, my feelings. I knew she will fight and I knew I will fight,” she said in her on-court interview, speaking over the cacophony after the game. “Wow, I just did it! I just believed in myself til the end.

“ I knew that she will fight. I also will be fighting ‘til the end. That’s what I just did, and it worked.”

When she was asked where she found that battling spirit, Prozorova pointed to pre-match sugar consumption.

“I ate a lot of desserts today,” she quipped. “Maybe it also told me, ‘Hey, c’mon, let’s go, fight!’”

The win sees Prozorova book her ticket to the quarter-finals, against China world No. 40 Wang Xinyu.

Wang booked her spot in the last eight with a 7-5, 6-4 win over qualifier Joanna Garland.

The crowd at the OCBC Arena came out to back the 24-year-old who held her nerve in a tight opening set before breaking clear in the second, winning eight of the final 12 games to close out the match and continue her run at the WTA 500 event

In the day’s other match, Australian Talia Gibson edged Veronika Morvayova 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-1) in a tense 138-minute battle. Both sets were decided by tiebreaks with Morvayova seeing her serve broken just once but could not force a decider.

In the quarter-finals, world No. 63 Gibson will face the winner of the match between seventh seed Maria Sakkari and Japan’s Nao Hibino in the round of 16.