How Alex Eala can seal stunning rankings breakthrough at Jingshan Tennis Open

Oli Dickson Jefford 22 Sep 2025 5:15 PM

An emotional Alex Eala after her win

It has been a year of historic firsts for tennis trailblazer Alex Eala, and the Filipina star is in touching distance of yet another significant milestone during her breakout 2025 season.

The past nine months have seen Eala become the first woman from her nation to crack the top 100 of the WTA Rankings and ultimately progress inside the top 60, reach her first WTA Tour final, and win a Grand Slam main draw match for the first time at the US Open.

Now, Eala kickstarts her Asian swing at the Jingshan Tennis Open, choosing the WTA 125 event over the prestigious China Open, and could be in line for yet another huge breakthrough in the WTA Rankings over the next six days.

How far can Eala surge in the WTA Rankings?

As of this Monday, Eala is ranked as the world No 58 on the WTA Rankings, just two spots off her career-high ranking of 56th, first achieved in June this year.

The WTA 125 event in Jingshan gives the tennis trailblazer not just the opportunity to seal a new career-high ranking, but potentially even crack the top 50 for the first time in her career.

Already the first Filipina woman to be ranked inside the top 100 of the WTA Rankings, a move inside the top 50 would see the star set yet another impressive milestone in 2025.

Much like the event in Guadalajara, which she won, 125 ranking points are available for whoever triumphs at the WTA Challenger event in Jingshan this week.

With no points to defend from any tournament, Eala would hold 1,208 points should she claim the second WTA 125 title of her career this week, up from the 1,083 points she currently holds.

Tennis News

Exclusive: Mirra Andreeva gets huge Grand Slam prediction from Serena Williams’ ex-coach

WTA China Open Draw: Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Emma Raducanu learn their fate

Though other tournaments elsewhere will also impact the WTA Rankings — most notably the WTA 1000 event in Beijing — that would be enough for the 20-year-old to provisionally move to world No 47 on current point totals.

Already provisionally up two places to her current ranking of world No 56 in the WTA Live Rankings, Eala will likely only need a small handful of wins to seal a new high at the very least.

However, there is a big opportunity for her to potentially hit another significant rankings milestone.

Eala’s pathway

As the only player inside the top 100 entered into the tournament, Eala is undoubtedly the heavy favourite to claim the title at the event; the Filipina is the top seed in the draw, with two seeded players already out.

Her campaign begins against world No 322 Aliona Falei in round one, before a second round versus either Mei Yamaguchi or Cody Wong.

Eala is then projected to face fifth seed Gao Xinyu in the quarter-final and then third seed Lulu Sun — a former top-40 star — in the semi-final, before second seed Talia Gibson in the final.