When Alex Eala steps onto the grass courts of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on Church Road in London for the 2026 Wimbledon Championships, she will once again make history for Philippine tennis.
The 21-year-old will become the first Filipino player in tennis history — across both the amateur and Open eras — to be seeded in the singles draw at Wimbledon.
Seeded 29th, Eala will open her campaign against world No. 76 Renata Zarazúa of Mexico in the first round.
In her five Grand Slam main-draw appearances over the past two years on the WTA Tour, Eala has advanced beyond the opening round only once. That breakthrough came at the 2025 US Open, where she rallied from behind in the deciding set to stun Denmark’s Clara Tauson.
This time, the Filipina will be looking to improve on that record against a familiar opponent.
Eala and Zarazúa teamed up in the women’s doubles event at the 2025 French Open. They opened their campaign with a straight-sets 7-5, 6-4 victory over Great Britain’s Emily Appleton and Spain’s Yvonne Cavallé-Reimers before bowing out in the second round to Russia’s Anastasia Potapova and Serbia’s Olga Danilović.
The two have also met in singles. In the quarterfinals of the 2024 ITF W100 Cary Tennis Classic in North Carolina, the then world No. 105 Zarazúa defeated Eala, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. At the time, Eala was ranked No. 147 in the world.
A week before the Cary Tennis Classic, Eala and Zarazúa were scheduled to partner in the women’s doubles event at the 2024 Koser Jewelers Tennis Challenge in Landisville, Pennsylvania. However, the doubles competition was canceled because of bad weather.
If Eala gets past the 5-foot-3 Zarazúa, an even tougher challenge could await her in the second round. She is projected to face either Australia’s Maya Joint or American tennis legend Serena Williams.
Joint denied Eala the title in last year’s WTA 250 Eastbourne final, while Williams — despite being away from singles competition for nearly four years — remains a formidable presence and is widely regarded as the greatest women’s tennis player of all time.
In the doubles competition, Eala will partner with 20-year-old Czech rising star Nikola Bartůňková.
The Eala-Bartůňková partnership traces its roots to the WTA 125 Birmingham Open earlier this month. The two faced each other in the singles final, where Eala captured the title, and also teamed up in doubles, although they exited in the first round.
Eala, currently ranked No. 151 in the WTA doubles rankings, and Bartůňková, who is ranked No. 1,799 in doubles, will face a daunting opening-round test against Grand Slam champions Jeļena Ostapenko of Latvia and Sofia Kenin of the United States.
Ostapenko, 29, won the 2017 French Open singles title and is currently ranked No. 10 in the world in doubles. She also captured the 2024 US Open doubles championship.
Kenin, 27, is the 2020 Australian Open singles champion and currently sits at No. 27 in the WTA doubles rankings.
