Rising star Alex Eala and her army of fans continue to be the talk of tennis with Jessica Pegula the latest to praise the Filipina player and her supporters.<\/p>\n
Eala<\/a> made her top-level breakthrough during the 2025 season with the Miami Open putting her name in the headlines<\/a> as she beat Grand Slam winners Je\u013cena Ostapenko, Madison Keys, and Iga Swiatek en route to the semi-final of the WTA 1000 event.<\/p>\n Her run was eventually ended by Pegula, but she surged into the top 100 of the WTA Rankings to become the first Filipina to achieve the feat while later in the year she made history again when she won her opener at the US Open, again becoming the first woman from the Philippines to win a major match.<\/p>\n Eala, who also reached her maiden top-level final last year as she finished runner-up at the Eastbourne Open<\/a> in June, also peaked at No 50 before the end of the year.<\/p>\n Her rise has continued in 2026 as she made it to the quarter-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships before losing in straight sets against Coco Gauff<\/a>.<\/p>\n The stands at the Aviation Club Tennis Centre were filled every time Eala made an appearance and the likes of Gauff and Amanda Anisimova were full of praise for the Filipina.<\/p>\n Amanda Anisimova gives her honest opinion on Alex Eala and her fans<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Coco Gauff sends classy message to Alex Eala\u2019s fans after Dubai showdown<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n And their fellow American Pegula, who beat Elina Svitolina in the WTA 1000 final<\/a> on Saturday, was asked about the 20-year-old\u2019s rise and her fans.<\/p>\n \u201cAlex is amazing. The way she\u2019s been able to pack stadiums and the way her country supports her is something special,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe handles it so maturely, with such grace. She seems so appreciative of all the support she gets. Always seems to have a good head on her shoulders and a good attitude about it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing. I played her when she kind of broke out last year in Miami. I\u2019m from there. The whole crowd was against me. I was like, \u2018What on earth is going on? Where did these people come from?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWeek after week as she has done well and established herself as a really good player on tour, they all come out to support her. I think we saw that in Australia, when it was kind of overcrowded, they put her on too small of a court.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw it here. You can hear it from the hotel. You can hear the crowd roaring at night. It\u2019s incredible. I think it\u2019s awesome for what she\u2019s doing for the sport.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a perfect role model for it. I\u2019m sure she wants to inspire girls, Filipino girls, to play tennis and go after their dream. It\u2019s awesome for the sport. Yeah, it\u2019s really, really cool. I think we just had a tournament there that she played.\u201d<\/p>\n The post \u2018Amazing\u2019 Alex Eala praise continues as Jessica Pegula shares her verdict on Filipino fans<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rising star Alex Eala and her army of fans continue to be the talk of tennis with Jessica Pegula the latest to praise the Filipina player and her supporters. Eala made her top-level breakthrough during the 2025 season with the Miami Open putting her name in the headlines as she beat Grand Slam winners Je\u013cena […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Alex Eala News<\/h2>\n