Miami, Mar 27: Teenage wild card Alexandra Eala staged a huge upset in her history-making breakout run at the Miami Open, dispatching No. 2 seed Iga Swiatek 6-2, 7-5 to make the first WTA semifinal of her career.

Eala, 19, is the first player from the Philippines to reach a tour-level semifinal and is now guaranteed to become the first Filipina to be ranked inside the Top 100 of the WTA Rankings next Monday.

"I'm in complete disbelief right now, I'm on cloud nine. It's so surreal. I feel like I'm the exact same person as I was in that photo. But of course, circumstances have changed! I'm so happy and so blessed to be able to compete with such a player on this stage... My coach told me to run, to go for every ball, to take all the opportunities I can, because a five-time Slam champion is not going to give you the win," Eala said in her on-court interview.

She is the third wild card to reach the last four in Miami, following Justine Henin in 2010 and Victoria Azarenka in 2018 -- both of whom were former World No. 1s returning from extended breaks, WTA reports.

This was Swiatek's third loss to a player ranked outside the Top 100 in a WTA main draw. Previously, she fell to Karolina Muchova (No. 106 at the time) in the first round of Prague 2019 and Ana Konjuh (No. 338 at the time) in the third round of Miami 2021.

No. 140-ranked Eala, whose run this fortnight has also included wins over Jelena Ostapenko and Madison Keys, is just the second wild card to defeat three or more Grand Slam champions in a single tour-level event, following Elina Svitolina at Wimbledon 2023. Prior to Miami, she had never defeated an opponent in the Top 40, nor faced one in the Top 20; she now owns two Top 10 victories, according to WTA stats.

Eala will next face either No. 4 seed Jessica Pegula or Emma Raducanu as she bids to reach her first career WTA final.

(IANS)

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