Alex Eala Is Catching The WTA’s Best Off Guard

In tennis, it can be pleasant to play under the flag of an underrepresented country with a large diaspora. Essentially, you have a network of sleeper cells who can be activated all over the world. They are extremely willing to spend money to come watch you play, and extremely loud, because to them you are one of the most important sportspeople alive. A player in these circumstances doesn’t have to reach the absolute peak of the sport to have this effect on people. Brazilian fans go nuts for blue-chip prospect Joao Fonseca. Turkish fans turn up for recent top-50 debut Zeynep Sonmez. But nobody out there is doing it quite like the Filipinos and Alex Eala. The 21-year-old from Metro Manila inspired mass devotion during her breakout semifinal run at the Miami Open last year, and probably would have continued to do so if her career petered off immediately after that. Instead, as she’s surged into the top 20 this summer, Eala is solidifying a place on tour for both her own curious game and her colossal fan base.

Last week, Eala competed for the first time at the D.C. Open. Mark Ein, chairman of the tournament, said that his staff had been courting her since the spring. He also said that about 80 percent of the inquiries to the tournament’s ticketing department were about when Eala was playing. “Honestly, I think it’s more, and they just didn’t want to say it was more, but they’re, like, virtually all. It’s not an exaggeration,” he said.

The Philippines haven’t produced an athlete of this international prominence since Manny Pacquiao. Eala held onto the crowd in D.C. even when opposed by an international superstar like Naomi Osaka or a top-ranked American like Jessica Pegula. Flags flapped and Tagalog chants boomed. Eala rewarded all that fan interest on Monday by winning the title—her first at the tour level—after upsetting the tournament’s top three seeds in her final three rounds. Giant-killing was at the center of the Eala origin story, and it remains a distinctive feature of her career. This summer, her lefty repertoire has looked strong enough to suggest that she could herself become a giant.