Twenty-one-year-old Filipino tennis player Alex Eala has become the first from the Philippines to win a WTA Tour-level singles title (Washington Open) and reached a career-high ranking of World No. 28.

Her successes—including junior Grand Slam and Southeast Asian Games golds—have inspired a surge in tennis participation at home and earned high-level recognition from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as a source of national pride.

Eala’s path involved years of training at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Spain and significant personal and family sacrifice; despite recent tournament setbacks, she is widely viewed as having a promising future at the elite level.

She is just 21 years and she is becoming a top tennis player in the world. She is none other than Alex Eala or Alexandra Maniego Eala from the Philippines. Eala is the first player from the Philippines to win a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour-level singles title.

Eala won the Washington Open singles title recently after she defeated the world’s top-ranked player Jessica Pegula from the United States in the finals. 

Eala won the 2022 US Open Girls’ Singles Championship, becoming the first Filipino to win a junior Grand Slam singles title.

Eala also won the women’s singles gold medal at the 2025 Southeast Asian Games, securing the Philippines’ first title in the event since 1994.

After the Wimbledon tournament this year, Eala reached a career-high Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) singles ranking of World No. 28, the highest ever attained by a Filipina.

The Philippines President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. recently honored Filipino tennis star Alexandra “Alex”........

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