{"id":9254,"date":"2025-06-27T13:20:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T17:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/alex-ira-defeated-valbara-gracheva-to-advance-to-the-eastbourne-open-finals\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T13:20:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T17:20:46","slug":"alex-ira-defeated-valbara-gracheva-to-advance-to-the-eastbourne-open-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/alex-ira-defeated-valbara-gracheva-to-advance-to-the-eastbourne-open-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Ira defeated Valbara Gracheva to advance to the Eastbourne Open Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Alex Ira passed France&#8217;s Valbara Gracheva in a gritty 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 victory in the semi-finals of the Eastbourne Open on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The victory is the second time this year when Ira defeated Gracheva and defeated her in Nottingham&#8217;s Open Qualifier two weeks ago. However, this latest victory has even more weight as it drives the 20-year-old into the final emergence of the unknown territory, the WTA. EALA is seeking her first championship at the elite level of female professional tennis.<\/p>\n<p>The semi-finals were not easy. EALA started strong in the opening set and took a 4-1 lead thanks to offensive forehands and diversity in shot selection. However, Gracheva responded kindly, tying four straight games together to flip the momentum and climbing to 5-4. But Ira continued to put her calm under pressure. With a highly-timed break in the 10th game, she regained control and closed the set in three consecutive games.<\/p>\n<p>Gracheva rebounded strongly in the second set, taking advantage of the visible dip of Eala&#8217;s rhythm. The French Russian player struck a string of unforced errors from the Filipinos, grabbing the set at 6-2 to force the decider.<\/p>\n<p>With spots in the final of the Line, the third set turned into a war of attrition. Both players served early, tied up in 3-3 after six tense games. The last one flashed was Ela. She broke Gracheva in the seventh game with an angled return and heavy baseline play mix, rising 5-3. Feeling her moment, Ira stepped up in the next game, sealing the match with another break, earning one of the biggest wins of her young career.<\/p>\n<p>EALA will face Australia&#8217;s Mayan joints and aim to close the Eastbourne open campaign with a historic title.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Ira passed France&#8217;s Valbara Gracheva in a gritty 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 victory in the semi-finals of the Eastbourne Open on Thursday. The victory is the second time this year when Ira defeated Gracheva and defeated her in Nottingham&#8217;s Open Qualifier two weeks ago. However, this latest victory has even more weight as it drives [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[292,345,2804,2860,111,2918,2916,32,24,2917],"class_list":{"0":"post-9254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-advance","9":"tag-alex","10":"tag-defeated","11":"tag-eastbourne","12":"tag-finals","13":"tag-gracheva","14":"tag-ira","15":"tag-open","16":"tag-tennis","17":"tag-valbara"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}