{"id":682713,"date":"2026-05-20T09:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T09:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/682713\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T09:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T09:49:09","slug":"seasters-alexandra-eala-janice-tjen-bring-southeast-asian-pride-to-french-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/682713\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018SEASters\u2019 Alexandra Eala, Janice Tjen bring Southeast Asian pride to French Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Alexandra Eala and Janice Tjen have taken different routes to the women\u2019s top 40, but both began their journeys from a region that is rarely on the tennis map.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In January, Eala, who turns 21 the day before Roland Garros starts, became the first player from the Philippines to break into the top 50.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Tjen turned 24 earlier in May. When she entered the top 40 in February, she became the highest-ranked Indonesian woman since Yayuk Basuki, who reached the top 20 in 1997 and 1998.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">While their far-flung countries are more than 1,500 kilometres apart, they share a maritime border. The impact of the sometime doubles partners, not only on the court but in the stands, has brought them the nickname \u201cSEASters\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The huge Filipino expat population flocks to see their first tennis star everywhere she plays.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Janice Tjen is the highest-ranked Indonesian woman since Yayuk Basuki. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3a49e143-4b88-49f2-9831-5d1e551fa493_3646e1eb.jpg\" title=\"Janice Tjen is the highest-ranked Indonesian woman since Yayuk Basuki. Photo: AP\"\/>Janice Tjen is the highest-ranked Indonesian woman since Yayuk Basuki. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThe start of the season is when I seriously noticed that people were really coming; they were buying tickets, they were taking time out of their day. It was like, wow,\u201d world No 38 Eala told the Served website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexandra Eala and Janice Tjen have taken different routes to the women\u2019s top 40, but both began their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[69099,3228,64,63,38306,5951,4805,66585,41238,277,964,24143,3576,283,85,747,1751,329190],"class_list":["post-682713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-alexandra-eala","tag-amanda-anisimova","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-billie-jean-king-cup","tag-dubai","tag-indonesia","tag-janice-tjen","tag-mallorca","tag-philippines","tag-rafael-nadal","tag-roland-garros","tag-rome","tag-southeast-asia","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-us-open","tag-yayuk-basuki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}