After two near misses, Alex Eala will have one final crack this year at making history.
The 19-year-old Eala has come agonizingly close twice to becoming the first-ever Filipina to reach the women’s singles main draw of a tennis Grand Slam.
She was just one win away from the main draw of both the French Open in May and Wimbledon in June. Unfortunately, she fell short in the last round of the qualifiers for both tournaments.
This week, however, Eala will get another chance as she begins her campaign in the qualifiers for the 2024 US Open.
Similar to her previous Grand Slam attempts, the world No. 144 Eala will need to win three matches in the qualifying rounds to secure a spot in the main draw at Flushing Meadows.
If she succeeds, she could potentially face world No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland, defending champion and world No. 2 Coco Gauff of the United States, or world No. 3 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
Eala’s first challenge will be 26-year-old Australian Maddison Inglis. Once ranked as high as No. 112 in the world, Inglis has made the main draw of all four Grand Slam events and even reached the third round of the 2022 Australian Open.
However, her ranking has since dropped to its current standing of No. 226, making Eala the favorite in their encounter scheduled for Tuesday at 11:00 PM (Philippine time).
Should Eala get past the Australian, her path to the main draw would only get tougher. In the second round of the qualifiers, she would face either Nuria Párrizas Díaz of Spain or Julia Avdeeva of Russia.
Párrizas Díaz, 33, is coming off a title win at the ITF W100 Cary Tennis Classic, where she defeated Renata Zarazua of Mexico in the finals on Sunday.
Eala also competed in the same tournament but was eliminated by Zarazua in a hard-fought three-set quarterfinal match. With her third professional title of the year, the Spanish veteran is expected to move up to world No. 99. Her career-high ranking was No. 44, achieved in May 2022.
On the other hand, Avdeeva is a familiar opponent for Eala. The two faced off earlier this year at the WTA 125 Oeiras Ladies Open in Portugal, where the 22-year-old Russian bested Eala in the opening round, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
If Eala makes it to the final round of the qualifiers, she could face one of four players on the opposite side of the draw. These include Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan, a former world No. 31 who has since dropped to No. 580; China’s world No. 209 Ma Xeyin, whom Eala has already defeated in straight sets twice; world No. 185 Antonia Ružić of Croatia; and 26-year-old Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania, formerly ranked No. 50, who reached the second round of both the US Open and the Australian Open in 2022.
While the path to the main draw of the US Open will undoubtedly be challenging, Eala has several factors working in her favor that should boost her confidence.
The Filipina lefty has had a strong run leading up to the final Grand Slam of the year. She achieved a rare double-double by winning both the singles and doubles titles at the ITF W100 Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain last July.
Despite a minor setback at the WTA 125 Warsaw in Poland, where she suffered a first-round exit, she rebounded with quarterfinal finishes in two W100 events – the ITF Landisville in Pennsylvania and the ITF Cary Tennis Classic in North Carolina.
Moreover, Eala will be returning to the courts where she celebrated one of the most significant victories of her junior career.
It was at Flushing Meadows where she became the first Filipina to win a junior singles Grand Slam, claiming the US Open girls’ singles title in 2022. Those who follow the sport closely know that Eala is at her most comfortable and dangerous on the Laykold hard courts of the US Open.
Eala will not only be aiming to achieve a feat no Filipina player has ever accomplished, but she will also be attempting to break a 20-year Grand Slam singles drought for the Philippines.
The last Filipino to make a Grand Slam singles main draw was Cecil Mamiit in 2004, when he lost to former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt in the opening round of the Australian Open.
At that time, Mamiit was still representing the United States before joining the Philippine national team in 2005.
