Alex Eala has spoken about her huge popularity and revealed what she found \u201csurprising\u201d about it ahead of her appearance at the 2026 Miami Open.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old has already reached superstar status in the Philippines after her rapid rise and trailblazing accomplishments for her home country in the past year.<\/p>\n
During her breakthrough 2025 season, Eala<\/a> became the first tennis player in her nation\u2019s history to: be ranked in the top 100, beat a top five player, reach a WTA Tour final, win a Grand Slam main draw match and win a WTA Challenger title.<\/p>\n Eala has continued her rise in 2026, and she climbed to a new career-high ranking of world No 29 on Monday after she reached the last 16 in Indian Wells on her debut at the WTA 1000 event.<\/p>\n The Filipina star has received staggering fan support at the tournaments she has played this year, and this is fully expected to continue at the Miami Open.<\/p>\n In an interview with The Times<\/em><\/a>, Eala expressed her gratitude for the support she receives from her compatriots.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s such a good thing to have and I\u2019m super grateful,\u201d Eala said. \u201cI\u2019m happy that [Filipinos] are being exposed to tennis. At the end of the day, it\u2019s just a way for us to bond and show pride in our culture.<\/p>\n Gauff backs Sabalenka, Eala & Fonseca star treatment, Medvedev \u2018third-best player\u2019: Miami Open roundup<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Emma Raducanu\u2019s next tournament revealed after Miami Open withdrawal as Alex Eala also set to star<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very proud of where we come from. I haven\u2019t seen that shared sense of pride in a lot of other communities, so that\u2019s one of the things that makes us special.<\/p>\n \u201cBut yeah, of course, especially in the beginning of the year, it kind of stepped up a notch. It was a little surprising, definitely, because it\u2019s hard to see yourself as that \u2018famous\u2019 when you have just been you for your whole life.<\/p>\n \u201cBut once you get past that, you learn to really enjoy it because the atmosphere is really different when there\u2019s a full stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n Eala also addressed the impact of her fame when she returns to her home in Quezon City in the Philippines.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s weird because being at home is like the most normal thing, right? But being famous at home, I walk around the streets or go to the restaurants I\u2019ve gone to since I was a kid and all of a sudden people are asking for photos, so it\u2019s something to get used to,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n Eala will face world No 53 Laura Siegemund<\/a> in her opening match at the Miami Open after receiving a first round bye.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Miami Open: Eala, Fonseca get top billing as Swiatek, Venus also feature on blockbuster day<\/a> The post Miami Open: Alex Eala gets candid about her huge popularity as she makes \u2018surprising\u2019 confession<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alex Eala has spoken about her huge popularity and revealed what she found \u201csurprising\u201d about it ahead of her appearance at the 2026 Miami Open. The 20-year-old has already reached superstar status in the Philippines after her rapid rise and trailblazing accomplishments for her home country in the past year. During her breakthrough 2025 season, […]<\/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-1902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902","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=1902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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