Alex Eala boosted her rankings at the end of her campaign on Saturday in the W80 Poitiers held at the Comite Departemental De Tennis De La Vienne in France.
The 17-year old Eala, who was seeking her first-ever finals appearance in an ITF W80 level event, moved up to 213 in the live Women’s Tennis Association standings after losing to 28-year-old Ysaline Bonaventure of Belgium again.
In their second encounter in two weeks, Eala fell in a 1-6, 6-3, 3-6 loss to Bonaventure in the semifinals.
But Eala’s semis stint allowed her to gain more points and move up from world no. 245 two weeks ago, to 224 early this week, and leapfrog further to 213 at the end of her clash with Bonaventure.
Bonaventure and Eala took an hour and 47 minutes to finish their encounter.
Eala won the second with an ace and seven of 11 first serve points won.
But Bonaventure eventually took the ninth game of the third after the Filipina rallied from 30-40 down, and forced a deuce.
The Belgian won the next two game points, broke Eala’s serve to win the third set, and moved past the semis.
Petra Marchinko eventually emerged as Bonaventure’s finals opponent after turning back Stefanie Lucrezia of Italy, 6-3, 6-1.
Last week, Eala had a showdown with Bonaventure, in the second round of the W60 Hamburg in Germany, and won 6-4, 6-0, over the Filipina.
Bonaventure made it to the finals to finish runner-up to Rebeka Masarova of Spain.