Teenage wild card Alexandra Eala turned in the most remarkable performance so far of her history-making breakout run at the Miami Open, ousting No. 2 seed Iga Swiatek 6-2, 7-5 to make the first WTA semifinal of her career. Eala overturned a 4-2 deficit in the second set.

Miami: Draws | Scores | Order of play 

"I'm in complete disbelief right now, I'm on cloud nine," a breathless Eala said in her on-court interview. Presented with a photo of her graduation from the Rafa Nadal Academy less than two years ago, with Swiatek by her side, Eala's state of shock only grew.

"It's so surreal," she said. "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."

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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 PIF WTA Rankings next Monday. 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.

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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.

The result is just 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.

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

How did Eala pull it off?

The tone of the match was set in a bruising opening stretch. The first four games alone took over 25 minutes to play after all went to at least one deuce. Five of the first six games of the match were service breaks. Eala established two things from the off: firstly, that her game could go toe-to-toe with the five-time major champion; and secondly, that she could keep her head even when coming out on the wrong side of long deuce tussles and when her lead was pegged back.

When Swiatek swatted a backhand winner to break back for 3-2, she seemed to have wrested the momentum. Instead, it was Eala who responded by running off eight straight points and five consecutive games to lead 2-0 in the second set.

Until this point, Eala had enjoyed a purple patch of breathtaking winners. Her left-handed forehand was the star of the show, and garnered her three in one game to break for 3-1 in the first set. But the youngster was also able to mix the play up with her backhand and a cheeky drop shot en route to closing out the first set. Swiatek was repeatedly left flat-footed.

The relentless aggression of Eala's returning -- frequently from well inside the baseline -- also paid off. Eala won more second-serve points (50%) than Swiatek won first-serve points (47%). Swiatek was able to win just two points behind her second serve all day. 

"She went all in," the Pole said in press. "She made these returns in and pretty long, and so it wasn't easy to hit it back. She was pretty loosened up and just went for it."

At 2-0 in the second set, Eala double faulted -- and then Swiatek pulled off her best shot of the day, a forehand sizzler crosscourt. She held for the first time in the next game, and the 2022 champion ran off four straight games of her own to lead 4-2. But she was unable to sustain that form.

Having tallied 19 unforced errors in the first set, Swiatek contributed a further 13 in the second set. But whereas Eala's consistency and depth had played a role in eliciting those mistakes early on, the back half of the second set saw rallies become shorter and more ragged. Swiatek also failed to serve the set out at 5-4, and collapsed in the final game of the match with a trio of wild forehand errors. On Eala's first match point, the Filipina pummelled another deep return to force Swiatek's backhand over the baseline.

How did Eala explain her win?

Throughout Eala's press conference, the poised teenager kept returning to one word: compartmentalization.

"I don't have a lot of experience on the WTA Tour, that's for sure," she said. "But I do have experience with compartmentalizing. I have experience with being professional. I have no hesitation to bring that part of me out when I'm on court and when I'm in a setting that calls for professionalism."

The roots of Eala's ability to separate her nerves from her point-by-point execution lie in her family background. Her mother, Rizza Maniego-Eala, was a Southeast Asian Games bronze medallist in the 100m backstroke and then the chief financial officer for one of the Philippines' largest telecommunications companies; her uncle, Noli Eala, is the former commissioner of the Philippine Basketball Association.

"It's not something I learned in the academy," she said. "It's something I've gotten from, I guess, my experience as the things I have been through leading up to this moment. It's also something my family has guided me through, and it's part of my family's values. They are successful people in business, they are successful in their own fields and people I look up to."

So disciplined was Eala about staying in the moment that, when the time came to celebrate, she looked as though she didn't know whether to scream or cry.

"I couldn't decide either," she admitted. "I think I was so in the moment, and I made it a point to be in the moment every point that it's hard to realize what just happened. It's hard to realize that you won the match. I really tried to soak it all in, because this has never happened to me before, and that's why I was looking at the screen. You know, I really wanted to keep that moment in my mind."