Alex Eala’s poor run of form has continued as she has suffered a fourth loss in the last five top-level outings, going down in straight sets against Diana Shnaider at the Ningbo Open.

The Filipina star has struggled in recent months as she kicked off the WTA 500 event in China on the back of three consecutive losses at WTA level before returning to winning ways with a solid two-set victory over Diane Parry.

But her second-round assignment was always going to be tougher as Shnaider is seeded sixth and currently sits at No 13 in the WTA Rankings, seven places ahead of Eala.

The first eight games of the match were pretty even as both held comfortably before Shnaider took charge in game nine as she found herself 0-40 up.

Although Eala managed to save two of the break points, she eventually dropped serve and, after Shnaider saved a break point on her own serve in the next game, the Russian broke again to take the opener.

Alex Eala News

Both players struggled on serve in the second set as the first six games went against serve before a couple of holds.

But Shnaider got the crucial break in game nine before coming out serve for the match. Eala fought until the end as she saved six match points before the 22-year-old wrapped it up 7-5, 6-4 in just under two hours.

Shnaider will face fourth seed Iva Jovic in the quarter-final while Eala looks for answers ahead of her next event, the Pan Pacific Open in Japan.

Before Ningbo, Eala had lost three matches in a row at WTA level as after losing in the fourth round of the US Open, she lost her openers in Wuhan and Singapore.

In between the US Open and Wuhan, she played at the Asian Games where she reached the semi-final.

WTA Ranking Points Earned

There is good news and bad news for Eala as she didn’t have any points to defend in Ningbo, but her first-round win was also worth only one point.

Eala started the tournament at No 20, but moved up one place in the Live Rankings with after Belinda Bencic dropped six spots.

She is still at No 19 after her exit and she looks set to remain there before the next update on Monday, as Marie Bouzkova is the only player who can overtake her and the Czech will need to win the Ningbo Open.

Prize Money Earned

Before the Ningbo event, the 21-year-old had earned $1,990,350 so far in 2026 while her career earnings were on $3,354,035.

She will go past the $2,000,000 mark for this campaign after her run to the second-round as she will receive a cheque of $12,700.