Alex Eala draws large Filipino following at Flushing Meadows during US Open fan week
Alex Eala drew a wave of Filipino supporters to Flushing Meadows on Friday during US Open fan week as the 21-year-old arrived at the tournament grounds as the Philippines’ highest-ranked player and a major draw. Her opening singles match is scheduled for Tuesday night against American qualifier Mary Stoiana on the 14,053-seat Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Eala is ranked No 18 and has emerged as the Philippines’ biggest sports celebrity since Manny Pacquiao, with the country’s president hosting a reception and calling for a national celebration after she won her first tour-level title this month at the DC Open. Forbes estimates her off-court earnings for the past year exceed $5m, plus $1.7m in prize money, and her agent has predicted she will be the world’s second-highest-paid female athlete by 2027.
The fan presence at the US Open was visible well before play: the crowd in Louis Armstrong Stadium began to swell a half hour before 2pm, with supporters in blue, red and white on bucket hats, posters, jerseys and flags. A practice session after Taylor Fritz and Terence Atmane’s drew the headline attention, a session with Karolina Pliskova filled an entire side of the lower bowl, and Eala also hit with Naomi Osaka and practised next to Carlos Alcaraz under Uncle Toni. The schedule announcement doubled resale ticket prices for her match to nearly $400.
Eala has been prominent across the tournament week off court as well: she played alongside Felix Auger-Aliassime in the mixed doubles championship, joined Serena Williams and Anna Wintour in Arthur Ashe Stadium for an event honouring Roger Federer, and appeared on the Ashe court for the Stars of the Open exhibition, with her highlight reel drawing one million views in less than 24 hours.
Her 2026 season form includes runs to the fourth round at Indian Wells and Miami, and a straight-sets upset of defending champion Iga Świątek on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Her DC Open title run included victories over world No 9 Elina Svitolina, Naomi Osaka and top-seeded Jessica Pegula, and tournament organisers said more than 80% of ticket requests for the DC event concerned Eala.
Eala’s pathway to the tour began in Quezon City, where her grandfather introduced her to tennis on painted-over basketball courts and she later won the eight-year-olds division at a West Side Tennis Club event in 2013, saying she would take her trophy and "practice even harder." She moved to the Rafa Nadal Academy at 13, qualified for the US Open junior main draw in 2019, won the girls’ title three years later, and last year made her WTA breakthrough by beating three major champions at Miami before making her US Open main-draw debut against Clara Tauson, winning after a third-set tiebreak and becoming the first Filipino player to win a grand slam match in the Open era.
The New York area’s Filipino community, estimated at about 260,000 in the metro area with the largest concentration in Queens, has been prominent at Flushing Meadows; the US Open grounds are a short subway ride from the neighbourhood known as Little Manila. At a press conference Eala discussed restaurant recommendations from a Filipino journalist, described herself as a self-declared "restaurant person," and noted a pair of custom Nike shoes that bear the scores from her DC Open run and a floral logo referencing the sampaguita. She said: "It's really not often that you see our language up among all of these other beautiful languages," and added, "It’s nice to see that Tagalog is getting the flowers and the Philippines is getting their flowers. It’s well deserved for us."
Eala has fewer than 100 tour-level matches to her name, and she acknowledges areas for improvement — she called her lefty forehand her greatest strength and said her serve needs work. She reflected on lessons learned from established players: "Although there are certain things like the media and [attention] that make me stand out, I think that I’m a drop in the ocean," she said. "I have learned a lot about [Williams’s] mentality on court, but also things about how she championed equal prize money with her sister, and things like the regular player on tour who’s not so exposed to the media, what they’ve had to work towards and what they’ve had to work through to get to where they are now. … That really keeps me humble. It keeps me motivated to work harder and stay among these incredible people."
Eala will start her US Open campaign in a late-night match at Armstrong against Mary Stoiana; if both advance through the draw a fourth-round meeting with fourth-seeded Coco Gauff could await. Gauff beat her in the Dubai quarter-final in February, Forbes ranked Gauff last year as the world’s highest-paid female athlete ($33m), and Eala won the first set of their meeting at Indian Wells before Gauff retired.