July 17, 2026<\/p>\n
MANILA \u2013 While their discussions focused on strengthening the bilateral cooperation between Philippines and Singapore, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong could not help but talk about Filipino tennis star Alex Eala.<\/p>\n
During Marcos\u2019 courtesy call on Wong at the Istana on Wednesday, the prime minister extended his congratulations to the Philippines and Eala for making history at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Prime Minister expressed confidence that Alex Eala would become the first Southeast Asian to win a Grand Slam title at Wimbledon, a view that President Marcos shared,\u201d Palace press officer Claire Castro said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth leaders expressed admiration for the success that Alex Eala has brought to Southeast Asia,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Before departing for his three-day state visit to Singapore, Marcos hosted a homecoming reception for Eala at Malaca\u00f1ang where he admitted to long being a fan of the 21-year-old tennis phenom.<\/p>\n
Eala made history as the first-ever Filipino to ever reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam event. During that stellar run, she stunned defending Wimbledon champion and world No. 3 Iga Swiatek of Poland, 7-6(9), 6-2, in their third-round match.<\/p>\n
She fell to Jasmine Paolini in the next round to formally close out her run.<\/p>\n
After the Wimbledon tournament, Eala reached a career-high Women\u2019s Tennis Association (WTA) singles ranking of World No. 28, the highest ever attained by a Filipina.<\/p>\n
During their meeting, Wong also congratulated President Marcos on the Philippines\u2019 elevation to upper middle-income country status.<\/p>\n
According to Wong, the country\u2019s achievement reflects respectable and steady economic growth despite the challenges brought about by the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Castro said the two leaders also discussed expanding trade, harnessing artificial intelligence, attracting more investors to the Philippines, and strengthening cooperation in healthcare and social development.<\/p>\n
Marcos and Wong also pushed for new bilateral agreements that would help advance the growth and development of both countries.<\/p>\n
Both sides also committed to ensuring a smooth transition of the chairship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 2027.<\/p>\n
Singapore is set to lead the regional bloc next year after the Philippines, with Asean\u2019s chairship rotating annually among its 10 member states in alphabetical order. \/mr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 17, 2026 MANILA \u2013 While their discussions focused on strengthening the bilateral cooperation between Philippines and Singapore,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-805535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805535","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=805535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}