Alex Eala pulled off one of the biggest shocks in tennis history with an astonishing 6-2, 7-5 win over world No 2 Iga Swiatek on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The world No 140\u2019s win over the five-time Grand Slam champion has sent shockwaves across the tennis world \u2013 and has seen Eala make a fair chunk of history.<\/p>\n
Tennis is becoming increasingly a global sport, and Eala\u2019s<\/a> success is a testament to that.<\/p>\n The 19-year-old is not only the first woman from the Philippines to reach a WTA 1000 final, but she is also the first to reach a semi-final at any WTA event.<\/p>\n She was already the highest-ranked Filipina in the history of the WTA Rankings, having reached a career high of world No 134 back in January 2025.<\/p>\n Thanks to her connection with IMG \u2013 the event owners \u2013 Eala received a wildcard into the main draw, having also received wildcards in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n However, in the 40 years since the Miami Open was first held in 1985, the teenager is just the third wildcard to reach the last four of the women\u2019s singles event.<\/p>\n And, the previous women to do just that are both world No 1\u2019s and multiple-time Grand Slam winners.<\/p>\n The first wildcard to reach the last four was seven-time major champion Justine Henin, who \u2013 like Eala \u2013 beat the second seed (Caroline Wozniacki) in the quarter-finals in 2010.<\/p>\n Eight years later, two-time Australian Open champion \u2013 and three-time Miami winner \u2013 Victoria Azarenka also reached the last four as a wildcard after beating Karolina Pliskova in the last eight.<\/p>\n Both Henin and Azarenka would ultimately lose their semi-finals, meaning Eala could become the first wildcard to reach the final.<\/p>\n Before Miami, Eala had only two WTA main draw victories to her name.<\/p>\n Now, she finds herself in a first WTA semi-final at one of the biggest events in the calendar, and has become only the third woman to reach her first tour semi-final at the Miami Open.<\/p>\n In 1988, a 16-year-old Mary Joe Fernandez reached her first semi-final in Miami, the 15th seed having stunned third seed Gabriela Sabatini in the fourth round.<\/p>\n Three decades later, qualifier \u2013 and future Miami Open champion \u2013 Danielle Collins reached her first tour semi-final at the event, shocking Venus Williams in the last eight.<\/p>\n Both Collins and Fernandez were beaten in their semi-finals but, encouragingly for Eala, would later reach Grand Slam finals.<\/p>\n Everything Iga Swiatek said after her stunning Miami Open loss\u00a0to Alex Eala<\/a><\/p>\n Alex Eala achieves historic rankings breakthrough with seismic Iga Swiatek Miami Open upset<\/a><\/p>\n Eala has the fairly unique advantage of being a \u2018lefty\u2019, something that could cause issues against some players in the future.<\/p>\n And, in the four decades of the Miami Open, only one left-handed woman has reached the semi-final of the event at a younger age than the Filipina.<\/p>\n That player happened to be Monica Seles, undisputedly one of the all-time greats of the sport.<\/p>\n Seles reached back-to-back semi-finals as a 16 and 17-year-old in 1990 and 1991, and would go on to lift the title in both years.<\/p>\n Eala had already made rankings history for her nation, with no other women from the Philippines having cracked even the top 200 of the WTA Rankings.<\/p>\n However, the 19-year-old is now guaranteed to become the first Filipina to reach the world\u2019s top 100 thanks to her Miami Open run.<\/p>\n Eala was just outside the top 100 of the live rankings, but having beaten Swiatek, she has moved up to world No 75 \u2013 a staggering leap of 65 places.<\/p>\n She would move inside the top 60 if she reached the final, and inside the top 40 should she lift the title.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0Who is Alex Eala? Teen star making history with Miami Open run<\/a><\/p>\n The post 5 incredible Alex Eala statistics after stunning Iga Swiatek at Miami Open<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alex Eala pulled off one of the biggest shocks in tennis history with an astonishing 6-2, 7-5 win over world No 2 Iga Swiatek on Wednesday. The world No 140\u2019s win over the five-time Grand Slam champion has sent shockwaves across the tennis world \u2013 and has seen Eala make a fair chunk of history. […]<\/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-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","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=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Reaching SF as a wildcard<\/h4>\n
Reaching first SF in Miami<\/h4>\n
Alex Eala News<\/h2>\n
Second-youngest left-handed semi-finalist<\/h4>\n
Top 100 breakthrough<\/h4>\n