When Alex Eala aced her way into our hearts

As the Filipino teenager brings down three tennis champions and captures a weary nation's imagination, I think about access, privilege, and our definition of success.

It wasn’t unusual for me to be waiting for a tennis match on television at nine in the morning.

Sure, I don’t do it often. In the family, I’m not the guy who’s into tennis, but my mother. Before they took the decision to cut cable, whenever there’s a big tournament on she’d be watching, and in turn, we’d be watching. We’d be familiar with the travails of the big names of the time—Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams—and most of the other players attempting to break through, and doing so successfully.

My mother went for Rafa—I’m certain she was influential in having our late Labrador named after him, even if she didn’t initially like the idea of having to take care of a pet by herself. Throughout this time she was the only one who actually played a racket sport—badminton, in this case, with her friends. My father, who didn’t play with rackets but spent some time at the golf course, was for Roger. My younger brother, the sportiest of the three siblings, was also for Roger. Their retirements were treated as big news in our group chats.

Me, I was just a little vaguely aware. I think the only time I was really invested in a Grand Slam tournament was the 2010 French Open, when I caught a match with the Italian Francesca Schiavone and somehow decided to root for her until the end—and she did win the championship that year, so there’s that. It must have helped that, unlike with basketball, nobody told me I wouldn’t understand the game, so I felt more welcome. Sure, I still didn’t know about the drama, and I wouldn’t probably be intimate with the sport’s more technical terms, but I understood how the scoring system works, and why “love” stood in for “zero”. (Nobody’s really sure, but the most accepted explanation is how the number zero looks like an egg. Egg is “œuf” in French, and it sounds like “love”. I’m not convinced either.)

I somehow fell off during the pandemic—of course, because the tournaments were cancelled, but also because I chose not to have cable TV at the flat, and therefore lost access to full matches for a good five years. But whenever I’d check in at home, whenever a Grand Slam tournament is on, we’d talk about tennis. Again, still not intimate with the drama, but at least I wouldn’t look out of place when we discuss names like Ashleigh Barty and Naomi Osaka and Iga Świątek and Emma Raducanu.

“Have you watched it?” my mother would ask.

I would always answer no.

Not for lack of trying. When I somehow found myself with access to FAST channels—thank you, decision to purchase a Samsung TV—I had access to a tennis channel, although it did not show actual matches from this year’s Australian Open, to my disappointment. I could only read about it, which does the job, but not really.

It was also through reading that I kept up with the adventures of Alex Eala. Of course, Philippine media would be all over her quest for tennis glory—not a lot of Filipinos get to do that. She did pretty well in her juniors career—she won the girl’s singles trophy at the 2022 US Open—but naturally took longer to establish herself when she became a professional. For some reason, it didn’t seem to matter. Perhaps it’s because most Filipinos aren’t familiar with how tennis works—meaning, all that matters is that she’s there—and perhaps it’s also because most of the updates I’m seeing were from colleagues who actually know Alex, and have seen her journey first hand, and would of course be complimentary of her.

And then, of course, this past week happened.

I remember first hearing that Alex—yes, Niko, already on a first-name basis?—defeated Jelena Ostapenko at the second round of this year’s Miami Open. I first went, “I know that name,” and then went, “wait, didn’t she win a Grand Slam?” Yes, the 2017 French Open. A Filipina who got in on a wild card defeated one of the best players in the sport? Okay, I think we have a story.

The following day, Alex had slayed another dragon, Madison Keys, who won the 2025 Australian Open. “Wait, wait.” The buzz was getting louder.

After the lucky break of her fourth round opponent Paula Badosa withdrawing from the competition due to injury, Alex faced Świątek, and defeated her in straight sets. Now, Iga won five Grand Slam competitions, four French Opens and one US Open. This felt monumental not just because the news said so, but because I remember all of those tennis matches I ended up half-watching. Iga is a multiple Grand Slam winner, and she was defeated handily by a Filipina? You could no longer avoid it.

And neither did the rest of the country. The media may have followed Alex’s travails over the past couple of years, but now they were really paying attention—and many Filipinos were latching on, too. Sure, it’s partly because it’s another “Pinoy pride” story, but the sign-off on Thursday night’s TV Patrol pointed at another obvious reason: we badly need a distraction from all the political turmoil in the news lately. Yes, we have midterm elections in a couple of months, but that even barely figures into the conversation, for some reason. It’s our former president, Rodrigo Duterte, and him being arrested by Interpol on behalf of the International Criminal Court, and him facing proceedings in the Hague for crimes against humanity, thanks to his brutal, screw-you-if-you-died enforcement of the “war on drugs”. It’s his daughter, vice president Sara Duterte—herself facing impeachment proceedings after a spectacular falling out with her erstwhile ally, the current president, Bongbong Marcos—pushing the narrative that her father was betrayed to foreigners by a treasonous government. It’s his supporters coming back to life on social media and, ideally, on the streets, demanding that the man who did “many good things” for the Philippines be cut some slack and returned home. By the way, Friday is his 80th birthday. Who knows what protests, what else, might break out?

Instead, we watched tennis.

I called my mother on Thursday afternoon. “What do you think of Jessica Pegula?” I asked. I had never heard of her until this week, a player that slipped past my radar.

“She started late,” my mother replied. I checked Wikipedia. She is 31, and while she’s one of the top players in tennis today, she has yet to win a Grand Slam trophy. “And apparently her parents are very rich?” Her father owns several professional sports teams, sure. I could hear someone’s voice in my head argue that her achievements mean nothing because she came from privilege.

At least I could watch the game live. One of the FAST channels I had access to happened to hold the domestic rights to the Miami Open. And, in any case, ABS-CBN did something it really didn’t have to do considering their financial circumstances of late: get secondary rights to the game, and air it on what’s left of their broadcast properties. Suddenly it felt like the early days of Manny Pacquiao all over again, but on a smaller scale, and with a more fragmented media landscape. We knew this was a big deal and we were more than happy to cheer Alex on, but I’m sure most of us weren’t sure how the scoring system works. “Bakit ‘love’ ‘yung zero?”

There was an extra degree of satisfaction in watching the network’s pre-match coverage, led by Migs Bustos and the grand doyenne of all sports (and beauty pageants), Dyan Castillejo. Prior to joining broadcasting, she played tennis professionally, and in fact was the first Filipina to get a WTA ranking. But I knew her from reporting about our many glories on the international stage, whether it be Pia Wurtzbach winning Miss Universe in 2015 or, more recently, Carlos Yulo winning two Olympic medals in Paris. She always did it with an empathy not evident in most sports broadcasters, because you realize she’s been there as a player and not just as a spectator. You can see it in how she covered up-and-coming names, like she did with Caloy and Alex early in their careers.

And then you realize that this is perhaps the first time Dyan was able to extensively cover a Filipino success in a sport where she made a name for herself many years ago. You realize it when she starts dropping jargon—I think she knew she had to guide clueless Filipinos to a sport that’s new to them, but I also think she couldn’t help herself. There was a twinkle in her eye. She was clearly relishing the moment.

The coverage started at eight in the morning on Friday, but the preceding match overran, so they found themselves filling and stretching for two hours. Migs eventually managed to ask Dyan a question about her own experiences, about how Alex must be filling, being on her biggest stage yet as a professional tennis player—no, representing the Philippines on that stage. When she talked about the brutal interplay between grit and luck in the world of tennis, you knew they weren’t mere platitudes.

She also touched on one truth that I already kind of knew beforehand: you may love the sport, but pursuing it is a pretty expensive affair. My brother and his wife recently took up tennis and talked of how much new rackets and outfits cost. That’s just for fun. What more if you love the sport so much, from a very young age, that you want to pursue a career in it? You’ll need people who will really support you all the way, mentally and financially. Equipment, coaches, playing time, and all those tournaments around the world—they aren’t cheap. Alex comes from a well-off family (and I am not saying this disparagingly) who were as passionate about the sport and are quite supportive, and they were also able to get corporate sponsors early on, leading her to be sent to the Rafael Nadal Academy in Spain. Such is the grind of individual sport, unless, I suppose, you allow yourself to have politicians sponsor you—remember why you always saw Chavit Singson ringside during Pacquiao’s heyday?

It was fascinating hearing Dyan talk about parents wondering how early should they start their kids on tennis. I don’t know. Is there the hope that, if they start young enough, they’ll have a champion in their midst, one who’ll earn a lot of money for, err, them? But I suppose we can’t help but see sport as a quick way to earn money and glory. We were treated to news of how much Pacquiao earned (and what he bought with his winnings), for example. And boxing is arguably easier to crack than tennis—all you need is to be able to fight, right? If he can do it, why can’t we?

And then there’s the question of national glory. I had touched on it before when Caloy won, about how the thought of “we should support sports that aren’t basketball because we’re short and we’ll never win championships there” always comes up. I haven’t seen it come up for tennis yet, because it’s still seen as one for the elites. The challenge, surely, is about access. We’re more inclined to build basketball courts because people will go there. Billiards halls flourished during Efren “Bata” Reyes’ heyday; boxing gyms flourished during Pacquiao’s peak. We didn’t have winners in badminton, but there were many such courts in Manila at some point, perhaps because there were many empty warehouses—and I don’t think that’s the case now. Upscale parts of capital is now home to several padel facilities, but again, that’s for those who can afford it. I bet there’s little to no chance we’ll see tennis courts outside of members-only country clubs.

But the feel-good story remains. Alex eventually ended her “Cinderella run”—an unseeded wildcard defeating three Grand Slam champions is a big story in tennis no matter what nationality you are—at the semi-finals, but not after giving an already exhausted Pegula a really hard time. While both players weren’t able to sustain their leads throughout the game—and I am still haunted by Alex’s double double faults in the first set that arguably cost her more momentum than her possibly spraining an ankle in the second set—it was, at least, not lopsided against our favor.

“Obviously, [Alex has] beaten a lot of top players this week,” Pegula said in her post-match interview. “I don’t really think she needs me to tell her that she’s a great player … she proved that tonight.”

Before leaving the court, she wrote on the camera, “I’m tired.”

On the other hand, Alex seemed even more pumped up despite the defeat. Seated on her chair, she raised her fists as the crowd at the Hard Rock Stadium—surprisingly, with more spectators on her side, and I assume, not just Filipinos—cheered her on. Imagine the opportunities it opens for her: the semifinals finish means she can enter more tournaments, and her dream of reaching a Grand Slam tournament isn’t so farfetched now. I think she’s supposed to be ranked 75th in the world now.

Sure, a lot of tennis is about luck—you can have, say, a career-hobbling injury early on, like what happened to Andy Murray. Or you can decide you’ve had enough of the mental stress and slow down, like Naomi or Ash did. There’s a reason why Rafa and Roger and Serena and Novak Djokovic are known as legends, but that does not diminish the accomplishments of the many, many other players making a presence on the international stage. (When I told my mother that Alex may be facing current world number one Aryna Sabalenka, she told me, “she’s my favorite!” She’d be relieved to learn that she won over Pegula.) We as a nation may have to recalibrate our definition of what success means—that in this case it’s not about constantly winning, but just showing up and pulling it off, one tournament at a time. As in life, really.

All that said, I’m happy to say that Alex’s story is definitely just getting started.