September 8, 2025 | 2:31pm
MANILA, Philippines — There isn’t a letting up for the newly minted WTA champion Alex Eala.
In a fast windup, the Filipina delight shifts her focus to the WTA 250 Sao Paulo Open in Brazil beginning Tuesday in a bid to win her second straight title.
Eala is seeded No. 3 in Brazil, drawing qualifier Yasmine Mansouri of France in Spherical 1. The sport time remains to be to be introduced pending the results of different qualifying matches.
Ranked No. 61 within the dwell WTA rankings with 1054 factors, Eala has been put in because the heavy favourite towards the No. 380 Mansouri.
The winner will get a shot towards both No. 188 Julia Riera of Argentina or No. 429 Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia within the second spherical
Then seeded as No. 2 within the WTA 125 Guadalajara Open, Eala dominated the 32-player subject highlighted by a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 comeback win towards Hungary’s Panna Udvardy to internet not solely her first WTA title but additionally for the Philippines ever.
She beforehand beat No. 187 Arianne Hartono of the Netherlands, 6-2, 6-2; WTA No. 122 Varvara Lepchenko of the US, 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-3), 6-3; No. 280 Nicole Fossa Huergo of Italy within the quarterfinals, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2; and WTA No. 418 Kayla Day of the US, 6-2, 6-3.
Eala, 20, pocketed a money prize of $115,000 or round P6.5 million, only a week after bagging a $154,000 or roughly P8.7-million purse with a second-round stint within the US Open in New York as the primary Filipina ever to win in any Grand Slam major draw.
Sao Paulo is a WTA-250 degree tourney, and Eala will enter Brazilian shores with an all-time momentum and confidence from an equally spectacular US Open stint marked by a surprising 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (13-11) win over World No. 15 and 14th-seeded Clara Tauson from Denmark.
She then exited within the Spherical of 64 to Cristina Bucsa of Spain, 6-4, 6-3, however that proved as an enormous stepping stone in her Guadalajara conquest.
Up subsequent for the taking is Sao Paulo.
