Abu Dhabi Open 2026: Janice Advances to Girls' Doubles Semifinal

JAKARTA - Indonesian women's tennis player Janice Tjen has made it to the semifinals of the women's doubles sector of the 2026 Abu Dhabi Open WTA 500 tournament with her Filipino partner, Alexandra Eala.

Janice/Eala qualified after defeating the second seed, Cristina Bucsa (Spain)/Zhang Shuai (China), in two sets 6-3 and 6-3 at the Zayed Sports City International Tennis Centre, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday, February 5, 2026, local time.

Their journey to the semi-finals came just an hour after Eala was knocked out of the women's singles quarter-finals. Despite playing in such close time frames, Eala did not show signs of fatigue while accompanying Janice.

They immediately hit the gas from the start of the first set and recorded exceptional effectiveness, converting five of the seven break point opportunities they got. Three of those came in the first set.

That figure is twice as many as the five opportunities the opposing pair have overall, all of which came in the second set. The more favored Bucsa and Zhang also often made their own mistakes, including recording three double faults.

Janice/Eala's advantage was evident in the first service point with a winning percentage of 65 percent, far above their opponents who only recorded 55 percent.

After securing the first set, Janice/Eala was immediately able to sprint 3-0 at the beginning of the second set after taking advantage of one break point in that period. The opponent pair managed to bring the score to 3-2, but their efforts were in vain.

Janice/Eala showed mental maturity by moving away again to a match point position of 5-2. Although the opponent stole one more game, Janice/Eala was able to close the match with a score of 6-3 and secure a ticket to the last four.

In the semifinals, Janice Tjen and Alex Eala will be challenged by the pair of Tereza Mihalikova (Slovakia) and Olivia Nicholls (Great Britain), who sent home the pair of Irina Khromacheva/Andreja Klepac (Russia-Slovenia).

Janice also actually played in the women's singles sector, but her journey stalled in the second round when she faced Italian and Russian blood, Liudmila Samsonova.