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More than just announcing her arrival in world tennis, Filipina teen sensation Alex Eala needs to sustain her gains on tour
MANILA, Philippines – Alex Eala etched her name in the annals of the Miami Open, with her quarterfinal upset of five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek of Poland largely considered one of the biggest shockers in recent tennis memory.
But for Filipinos, the significance of her improbable Miami run went beyond the hardcourt of the Hard Rock Stadium in Florida.
It meant witnessing another athlete from the country announcing her arrival on the world stage through a string of upsets of epic proportions.
The feat made the 19-year-old Filipina just the third wild card in tournament history to reach the semifinals, something only Justine Henin of Belgium and Victoria Azarenka of Belarus have achieved.
But the difference is that Eala was a virtual unknown coming into the competition, while Henin and Azarenka were granted wild card spots by virtue of both being former world No. 1 players
With Eala’s expected surge in the world rankings, there will also be a change at the top of the Southeast Asian totem pole.
Eala was overtaken in recent months by Mananchaya Sawangkaew of Thailand as the highest ranked Southeast Asian in the world. But the Filipina will officially leapfrog past the Thai world No. 110 by Monday, March 31.
The projected rise to world No. 75 from 140 also guarantees Eala a berth in the main draw of the 2025 French Open starting May 25.
This will be a huge boost for Eala, who missed out on the Grand Slams in 2024 after falling in the last round of the qualifiers for the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open.
The next few months will be critical in the development of the lefty Eala — a 2022 US Open girls champion — which has been fast-tracked after her deep run in Miami.
She most likely will no longer be playing in the lower level ITF events, and the next big tournament on the horizon is the WTA 1000 Madrid Open.
Chances are high that she will have a place in the main draw, whether it is from her new career-high ranking or from a wild card invitation.
Eala was a wild card in the 2024 Madrid Open and she ended up winning her opening-round match against then world No. 41 Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine.
Before the Miami Open, Tsurenko was the highest ranked player Eala had beaten, At that time, the second round of the Madrid Open was also the farthest Eala had gone in a WTA event.
Between the Miami Open and the Madrid Open, there’s a four-week window of WTA Challenger events in the calendar. Expect Eala to be in a number of these competitions.
Coming out party
Eala’s campaign in Miami was not only a coming out party for her but also a history-making venture on various fronts which has far-reaching positive implications for her career.
No Filipino had ever beaten a Grand Slam champion before, yet Eala did it thrice in one tournament.
When Filipino-Americans Eric Taino and Cecil Mamiit had similar feats decades ago, they were representing the United States at the time of those victories. The two eventually became longtime members of the Philippine men’s tennis team.
Taino defeated former French Open champion Michael Chang in the first round of the 2003 ATP RCA Championships in Indianapolis, while Mamiit made the finals of the 1999 ATP Sybase Open by beating Chang in the semifinals and Andre Agassi in the second round (disqualified in the second set for swearing at the umpire).
Before bowing out to world No. 4 Jessica Pegula in the semifinals, Eala upended a trio of tennis major winners, with Swiatek the most-high profile victim as the Polish star owns the most Grand Slams among all active players in the post-Serena Williams era — four French Open titles and one US Open championship.
The 5-foot-9 Eala also defeated reigning Australian Open champion and world No. 5 Madison Keys of the United States in the third round, making Eala the first Philippine player to beat players ranked in the top 5 in the world.
Eala likewise eliminated former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in the second round.
The stunners made Eala just the second wild card to topple three Grand Slam winners in the same WTA event, the other being Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.
Her semifinal finish in the Miami Open — a tournament just a notch below the Grand Slams — is the farthest that a Filipino, male or female, has reached in the WTA or ATP.
Eala’s climb to No. 75 will also be the highest ranking in the modern era attained by a Filipino.
Mamiit had at a career-high ranking of 72 after reaching the second round of the Australian Open and the US Open in 1999, but that was five years before he changed federations and became part of the Philippine team.
Eala’s magical campaign was also reminiscent of the time when a still relatively little-known Manny Pacquiao stopped in the 11th round Marco Antonio Barrera — the dreaded baby-faced assassin from Mexico and then the Ring Magazine No. 3 pound-for-pound boxer in the world — during their 2003 “People’s Featherweight” title bout in 2003 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
It was similar, too, to the Filipinas football team scoring a 1-0 stunner over home team New Zealand in Auckland to prove they were not in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup as a token entry.
Her feat likewise gave the same feeling when Gilas Pilipinas shocked world No. 6 Latvia in Riga, 89-80, during the 2024 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
As the nation celebrates Eala’s success in the Miami Open, it’s also clear for the teen sensation that she needs to sustain her gains by continuing to do well on the tour so she could accumulate more points and ascend further in the world rankings.
Though she scored a huge achievement, Eala knows it’s just a small step in her promising career journey. – Rappler.com
