Alexandra Eala produced the headline result of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships second round, defeating No. 6-seeded and No. 8-ranked Jasmine Paolini 6-1, 7-6 (5) in a match lasting an hour and 40 minutes.

Eala dominated the opening set, racing through it and later reaching a set and a break up as victory loomed. Paolini mounted a fierce reply in the second set, saving three match points while serving at 3-5 — two at 15-40 and a third at ad-out — then won three games in a row to lead 6-5. Eala held to force a tie-break, missed another match point at 6-4, but closed the match on her fifth match point with a forehand winner up the line. It was her 24th and final winner of the match.

“All of the emotions are coming because the tension was so high, especially during that second set, so I’m really happy to have gotten through,” Eala said after the win. “She’s a great opponent, obviously being Top 10 and a former champion here in Dubai, so to be able to compete at this level with her is a great achievement for me.”

Reflecting on the decisive moments, Eala added: “In the tie-break I was trying everything to keep myself in check. In the change of ends I was thinking about how this stadium is full of Filipinos, and I thought of how many of them were probably praying for me to win! So I knew that I had to give everything I had.”

The victory marks Eala’s third Top 10 scalp of her career; her first two came against Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek during her breakthrough run to the semifinals at another WTA 1000 event in Miami last year. All three wins over top players have come in straight sets, and her record against Top 10 opponents now stands at 3-2.

ALEXANDRA EALA VS TOP 10 PLAYERS: 3-2

February is beginning to matter more on the tour calendar as upgraded events in the Middle East attract big names. The ATP 500 in Doha now hosts the sport’s top two players, and the WTA 1000 in Dubai features a deep draw led by a recent major champion.

Also: For fans who don’t have the patience for the new, extended Masters 1000s, February still gets its tournaments done the old-fashioned way, in a week.

Doha presents a rare early-season showdown. The Spaniard and the Italian are the top two seeds, with Carlos Alcaraz arriving fresh from completing the career Slam in Melbourne and still only 22. Jannik Sinner follows as the No. 2 seed after a loss Down Under that ended a three-year streak without defeat. Their draws include heavyweights in both halves: Alcaraz’s side lists Daniil Medvedev, Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev, while Sinner’s half contains Alexander Bublik, Jiri Lehecka and Jakub Mensik. Khachanov won this title in 2023 and Medvedev in 2024. Bublik beat Sinner once in 2025.

Dubai’s WTA 1000 field is likewise strong, with eight of the tour’s top 10 entered. Two notable absences are Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek, but Elena Rybakina headlines after capturing her second major at the Australian Open and sustaining the tour’s best form since last fall. Rybakina lost to Victoria Mboko in Doha last week and faces potential obstacles in her quarter in the form of Elina Svitolina and Belinda Bencic.

Behind Rybakina on the seed list are Amanda Anisimova, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula. Anisimova dropped 990 ranking points after an opening-round loss in Doha and will begin here against Barbora Krejcikova. Gauff also fell in her Doha opener and may be using Dubai mainly as serve practice ahead of the larger hard-court swing. Victoria Mboko and Karolina Muchova, the Doha finalists last week, are absent from this draw, leaving room for other contenders to make deep runs.

Victoria Mboko, the Canadian teenager set to enter the Top 10 on Monday, left Doha with a clear sense of progress despite falling short in the championship match. Six months after winning her first WTA 1000 title, Mboko carried that momentum into the 2026 season and reached a second WTA 1000 final at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open.

In the title match she ran into Karolina Muchova and lost 6-4, 7-5. The scoreline reflected a tight contest in which Mboko surrendered a handful of decisive points to a more experienced opponent. Earlier in the week she produced consecutive victories over Top 10 players in Doha, wins that secured her Top 10 debut and underlined how quickly her status on tour has changed.

The shift from underdog to favorite is a new challenge for Mboko. Reaching a second WTA 1000 final in the span of six months confirmed her arrival among the tour’s leading players, but converting that form into another title proved difficult against a player with greater match experience in big finals. The loss to Muchova denied Mboko a second WTA 1000 trophy but did not erase the larger gains of the week.

For now, Mboko will take the ranking milestone and the lessons from the Doha final into the remainder of the 2026 season. The sequence of back-to-back Top 10 victories and a second WTA 1000 final represent a substantive step forward. While the final result was disappointing, the results in Doha delivered both validation and a clearer sense of the expectations that will accompany her as she begins life in the Top 10.