MIAMI — Another week, another teen phenom. This time, it’s a 19-year-old from the Philippines named Alexandra Eala who cannot be stopped.
For a third consecutive match, Eala, wild card entry into the Miami Open, has beaten a Grand Slam champion. This time, she has beaten the most dominant one of the past three years, toppling Iga Świątek 6-2, 7-5.
Świątek, the five-time Grand Slam champion and world No. 2, struggled with her serve, allowing Eala to push forward and stand either on or inside the baseline for most of the match. Świątek also couldn’t figure out the riddle of Eala’s serve, a spinning, left-handed offering that just barely cracks 90 mph on the first ball and travels at roughly 75 mph on the second.
Playing fearless from the start, Eala said in her news conference that she sensed that she “had the level” to stick with Świątek early on. She had some extra motivation, too. Her parents had flown in from the Philippines Tuesday night, and an uncle and a cousin had arrived from Seattle.
“I really wanted them to see me winning,” she said.
They saw more than that. They saw a precocious display of aggression and thoughtfulness. Eala went for winners whenever she could, while mixing in just enough stylish drop shots and resilient defense to show that she was focused on every point, as she knew she needed to be.
Whatever Eala lacks in obvious power, she has made up for with quick feet and hands and healthy doses of gumption, especially on the most crucial points. Time and again, she stood her ground and absorbed Świątek’s power and spin. She short-hopped the ball to take time away from her opponent, or took a big cut at balls that kicked off the court and bounced up around her eyes.
The strategy rushed Świątek’s preparation, especially on her forehand, forcing her to float shots off the court, or to pop them up short, giving Eala an opportunity to put the next ball away. Świątek hit 32 unforced errors to Eala’s 12, even though Eala had never played in a stadium nearly as big as the 13,000-seat temporary venue inside the cavernous NFL stadium that houses this event.
“I really tried to just focus on the court and feel like nobody else was there,” said the young woman who has spent the past two months struggling to string together wins at the second-tier WTA tournaments, the 125s. But as inexplicable as this spurt might be, she is in so many ways a product of an increasingly global sport.
Elite players can and do emerge from countries and regions that rarely produced professionals in the past. Show promise as a child and some coach or scout somewhere will send a note and some video to someone who can make a few calls. That person can transport a kid like Eala from an archipelago of 7,641 islands and over 110 million people that has produced a handful of notable tennis players to Rafael Nadal’s academy in Spain.
Eala has not had many moments in the limelight in the second and third tiers of the professional game the past three years. And yet the man who made Nadal — his uncle, Toni — was sitting courtside for Eala’s match against Świątek.
“He’s worked with me for so long,” Eala said.
Eala is represented by IMG, the same agency that helped launch Nadal’s career. The company is increasingly on the lookout for potential stars from tennis markets outside Europe and the U.S., having learned from players like Kei Nishikori of Japan and Zheng Qinwen of China that a star from countries that don’t have many of them doesn’t need to reach No. 1 to become a financial juggernaut.
Eala also has good timing. She has come on at the end of a relentless stretch for the WTA Tour, a two-month journey that takes players to the Middle East for February, over to California for the first half of March and then across the U.S. to Florida for the second half. Many of the top players also made deep runs in Australia in the second half of January.
Gas tanks are running low. The red clay beckons. Then all of a sudden, a fresh, relentless teenager is free-swinging on the other side of the net, playing with house money.
“She was really aggressive and she kept her focus, and, like, I don’t know, some of these shots were pretty like out of nowhere,” Świątek said of Eala in her news conference. “I could see clearly she has intentions to go forward and to push.”
Świątek had received additional security earlier in the tournament, after a man harassed her during practice before her victory over Elina Svitolina. The result still continues a year of frustration for the former world No. 1, who has not won a title since last year’s French Open. Three of her four losses at the tournaments before this one in 2025 came at the hands of the eventual champion — Mirra Andreeva in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Indian Wells, Calif., and Madison Keys at the Australian Open. Andreeva and Keys are both top-10 players, and the other defeat came to Jelena Ostapenko, an opponent Świątek has never beaten.
In every match, Świątek faced an opponent playing something close to the match of her life, but here, Eala was playing the match of her life for the third time in a row in a week. She was also the world No. 140 — at least until next week, when she will break the top 100 for the first time, ranked at least No. 75.
“She went all in,” said Świątek, who usually overruns underpowered players like Eala. “She made these returns in and pretty long, and so it wasn’t easy to hit it back. She was pretty loosened up and just went for it.”
After being overrun in the first set, Świątek served for the second, but Eala hit a nifty drop shot to get to double break point and then got Świątek to send another forehand wide to draw even at 5-5. Eala held serve once more, and in the decisive game, two forehand errors from Świątek — one into the net and one long — got Eala to within two points of victory. Świątek then framed another forehand, shanking it high and long. On match point, it was the backhand that went long.
Eala stood still behind the baseline, her face still with shock.
After shaking hands she walked to the center of the court and choked back tears, staring at the crowd and the giant images of herself on the massive screens in the corners of the stadium.
“I’m just in disbelief right now,” Eala said on court.
“It’s so surreal … I’m so happy and so blessed to be able to compete with such a player on this stage.”
An hour and a half later, she was still having trouble processing all this. Her run in Miami was already ridiculous. After beating Katie Volynets to start, she beat former French Open champion Ostapenko in the second round and reigning Australian Open champion Keys in the third. She got a break in the round of 16, when Paula Badosa withdrew with a back injury.
Knocking off Świątek, even the version of her prone to playing tight against players who walk onto the court with little to lose, is on a different level. Świątek generally destroys inexperienced opponents like Eala, getting a sniff of a lead and then running into the distance.
But each time she appeared to be shaking off the nerves and going on one of her patented rolls, Eala stepped in and took her shots. This wasn’t simply a matter of forcing Świątek to hit one more shot; it was a 19-year-old finding the lines and angles that had Świątek’s head on a swivel as she watched ball after ball fly past her. Eala, more typically a counterpuncher, reached for the strategy of all-out aggression that other players have found disrupts Świątek. She executed it with aplomb.
She won 77 points to 59 for Świątek. She won 43 of those points while returning serve. She won eight of 10 break points. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Her win once more puts her in uncharted territory for a tennis player from the Philippines. She was already the highest-ranked Filipino in WTA Tour history, and the first to win a junior Grand Slam, the U.S. Open in 2022. Now she is in a semifinal at the 1,000-level event, one rung below a Grand Slam. The Philippines has three top-30 wins since WTA rankings began in 1975; Eala has all three.
A couple of years ago, she was just happy to get into a picture with Świątek, who spoke to her graduating class at the Nadal Academy. She got Rafa in the picture, too. Now she’s got Toni in her box and a win over Świątek.
U.S. Open finalist Jessica Pegula or 2021 U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu will face Eala next. Before this week, they would be new foes. For Eala right now, they will be all in a week’s work, and, she hopes, the start of something even bigger.
“I’ve always been a big dreamer,” she said.
She doesn’t want to just make history for her country, but also for her sport. She said winning a Grand Slam and becoming world No. 1 have long been end goals, ever since she started idolizing Maria Sharapova as a young girl.
But one step at a time, even if she has crammed a bunch of steps into a wild week of tennis in Miami.
“Being a successful junior doesn’t mean you are going to be a successful professional,” she said.
(Top photo of Alex Eala: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)
