Eala moved up two places in the rankings released November 2, past the No. 18 she reached in August. She is the highest-ranked Filipino and Southeast Asian in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour’s history.

Alex Eala is now No. 17 in the world, the highest ranking of her career. The WTA rankings released Monday, November 2, moved her up two places from No. 19, past the No. 18 she first reached in August. She now sits between No. 16 Naomi Osaka and No. 18 Leylah Fernandez.

How She Got Here

The climb follows her quarterfinal at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, where she took a set off Diana Shnaider before losing the match. It was her first quarterfinal of the Asian swing. She had lost in the first round in Wuhan and in the round of 16 in Singapore and Ningbo. Eala began 2026 ranked No. 53 and has played 26 tournaments this year, including her first WTA title, at the Washington Open in August.

What’s Next

Eala is the No. 2 seed at the Hong Kong Tennis Open, a WTA 250 event at Victoria Park that runs November 2 to 8 and is her last tournament of 2026. She opens Tuesday, November 3, Manila time, against Alycia Parks of the United States, ranked No. 65. They have split two meetings: Parks won at the Australian Open, and Eala won in Toronto in August. The winner plays Tereza Valentova or wildcard Sun Xinran in the second round. Every ElysPlanet story on her is in the Alex Eala archive.