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Manila Bulletin devider Sports devider Alex Eala at home? PH Women's Open added to WTA 2026 calendar

Alex Eala at home? PH Women's Open added to WTA 2026 calendar

Published Nov 26, 2025 04:15 pm

At A Glance

  • The WTA Tour has officially added the first-ever Philippine Women's Open from Jan. 26 to 31 as part of its 2026 calendar.
Alex Eala playing before the home crowd is now closer to reality.
The WTA Tour has officially added the first-ever Philippine Women’s Open from Jan. 26 to 31 as part of its 2026 calendar.
The tournament is officially classified as a WTA 125 event with a total prize money of $115,000 or roughly around P6.6 million initially listed on the official website.
Details of the event are still scarce as of the moment, although the Philippine Tennis Association and the Philippine Sports Commission are expected to make announcements in the coming days.
Likewise, there’s no official word yet on who are the international stars possibly joining the tournament though Eala, the current face of Philippine tennis, is widely expected to participate in the historic event.
Her participation, however, will depend on how deep she would go in the Australian Open, the only Grand Slam where the Filipina tennis princess has yet to reach the main draw.
The Australian Open is set on Jan. 12 to Feb. 1 with the qualifying draw scheduled on the 13th to 16th while the main draw will fire off on Jan. 18.
The event, of course, is still a byproduct of Eala’s exploits in the 2025 season where he put the country in the tennis maps following her victories over three Grand Slam champions Madison Keys, Jelena Ostapenko, and Iga Swiatek.
Eala’s breakthrough also catapulted her not only to stardom but also to a career-high No. 50 in the WTA rankings,
In an earlier interview, PSC chairman Patrick “Pato” Gregorio revealed that they have been working on the improvement of the tennis court at the Rizal Memorial Complex to be at par with WTA standards.
“We’re going to renovate the tennis courts in Rizal and we’re just making sure to add more bleacher sets. We hope to accommodate more than 2,000 people in January and moving forward, if we want to bid for bigger WTA events, maybe we can go to bigger stadiums just like in Clark,” said Gregorio.
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