BIG GUNS AWAIT ALEX IN DOHA

MANILA, Philippines — A bigger mountain awaits Alex Eala in the nearby Doha City after being drawn into a tough bracket featuring Grand Slam champions and Top 10 players for the prestigious WTA 1000 Qatar Open starting today at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex.

After campaigning in both singles and doubles play of the WTA500 Abu Dhabi Open marked by a roaring Filipino crowd backing, Eala was bracketed with world No. 2 and six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek of Poland, and No. 3 seed, reigning champion and world No. 4 Amanda Anisimova of the United States according to the official draw.

Also in the upper half of the 64-player draw are world No. 8 Jasmine Paolini of Italy, No. 10 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, No. 12 Linda Noskova and No. 19 Karolina Muchova of Czechia as well as No. 17 Emma Navarro of the United States. WTA No. 47 Janice Tjen of Indonesia, her doubles partner and “SEA-ster” in the Abu Dhabi Open, as well as good pal Zeynep Sonmez, WTA No. 79, of Turkey, are also in the fray.

Eala, WTA No. 45, is unseeded and will play a qualifier at a still-to-be-determined schedule today or tomorrow. It gets tougher from there, possibly facing Muchova, a French Open finalist in 2023, by the second round and Anisimova in the next stage.

Swiatek and company are projected to wait down the road as now world No. 3 and newly-crowned Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan spearheads the bottom half cast of the draw for an anticipated cruise to the finale.

The Qatar Open is the WTA Tour’s first 1000-level tournament this season and it will be Eala’s career-first as a direct entry being one of the world’s top players now.

Then at No. 140, Eala last year made it to the Miami Open, also a 1000-level tour, as a wildcard and put on a Cinderella run all the way to the Final Four marked by wins against Top 10 players and former Grand Slam champions like Swiatek, Madison Keys and Jelena Ostapenko.

That magical campaign catapulted her to the Top 100 and later on Top 50 to qualify to all 1000-level tours and Grand Slams.

Eala, according to live WTA rankings, has already entered the Top 40 for the first time ever at No. 39, thanks to a solid campaign in Abu Dhabi, a 500-level event.

She reached the quarterfinals of the singles play and made it to the semifinals of doubles with Tjen, extending her streak of playoff finishes to start the season on a high note after Final Four and Last 8 of the ASB Classic (WTA250) Classic in Auckland New Zealand and the Philippine Women’s Open (WTA125). That’s on top of her main draw debut in the Australian Open and an exhibition title conquest in the Kooyong Classic both in Melbourne.

2026-02-07T16:31:26Z