Alex Eala skipped a mandatory WTA 1000 to play the Asian Games for the Philippines. Indonesia’s Janice Tjen made the same request and was denied — the WTA hasn’t ruled on Eala’s case yet.
A New York Times front page, a CBS Mornings sit-down, and three NYFW front rows — Alex Eala’s New York had nothing to do with tennis.
Alex Eala’s Philippine Arena homecoming has tickets from ₱618 to ₱63,705 — a 103x spread. Here’s the economics behind tiered event pricing, and how it compares to the Federer-Nadal exhibition it’s chasing.
Iva Jovic beat Alex Eala for the third time this year at the US Open on Saturday night, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, closing out a third-round match at Arthur Ashe Stadium that was, for the first time in their rivalry, actually a fight. Eala had never taken a set off Jovic in two prior meetings this season. This time she took one, forced a decider, and led it 4-2 and 4-3 before Jovic leveled at 4-4 and served out the last two games to win it. Eala crossed the court to embrace her friend anyway — a hug that, for a moment, looked less like a rivalry ending than two people who happened to be on opposite sides of it. It was the first of their four meetings to reach a third set, and the first played on a hard court — the surface where Eala has had some of her best results this year. None of that changed the outcome. It did change what the loss means: Eala’s tournament ends in the third round, her …
Alex Eala avenged her Strasbourg loss to Oleksandra Oliynykova at the US Open, 6-1, 6-4, opening with nine straight points. Afterward, she talked patience, pride, and playing her next two rounds against her closest friends on tour.
Nora Aunor and Pilita Corrales died four days apart in April 2025. On September 6 in Beverly Hills, the Manila International Film Festival honors them both, through the one family member who carries both names.
Alex Eala opened her US Open campaign with a straightforward 6-1, 6-2 win over American qualifier Mary Stoiana — setting up a tougher round two.
Alex Eala finally faced a real opponent in Cincinnati — and took a set off a two-time Grand Slam finalist before falling in three. Next stop: the US Open.
Alex Eala became the name the Philippines learned to watch. Her older brother Miko knows what it took to get there because he was there first. There is a particular kind of intimacy that comes from losing to the same person over and over again — and for Alex Eala, that person was her older brother. Before the packed arenas, the national flags, the 4 a.m. wake-ups and the increasingly routine business of beating players whose names once belonged to the television, there was Miko on the other side of the net. Older, better, already further along in the sport. Alex has said she used to practice constantly with him, and even after he had stopped playing for months, she still couldn’t beat him. It’s a funny detail in the origin story of one of the Philippines’ biggest sporting figures, and a more revealing one than the usual family-tree version of the Eala story: Miko didn’t merely grow up alongside Alex’s tennis career. He was part of the environment that made it possible. The siblings …
Alex Eala got the rematch she wanted. The ending, however, came sooner than either player planned. The 21-year-old Filipina tennis star advanced to the Round of 32 at the Cincinnati Open in the early hours of Sunday, Aug. 16 (Manila time), after Elena-Gabriela Ruse, the Romanian she’d lost to in her only previous meeting with the player, retired with an apparent right ankle injury while Eala led 6-1, 3-0. It was an emphatic start. Eala dropped the opening game, then reeled off nine of the next ten to seize control of the match. Ruse called for a medical timeout after falling behind 3-0 in the second set to have the ankle taped, and play was suspended shortly after for lightning. She retired before it could resume, handing Eala the win 6-1, 3-0 (ret’d). The result evens their head-to-head at 1-1. Ruse beat Eala in their first meeting, at the 2024 US Open qualifying tournament — a match Eala had led before Ruse rallied to win in three sets. This time, Eala never let her settle …
