Alexandra Eala has enjoyed a breakout season on the WTA Tour in 2025.
Eala, who graduated from the Rafael Nadal Academy, began the season ranked at world number 138.
The Filipina has produced some big results since then, highlighted by Eala’s run to the Miami Open semifinals.
Eala also reached her first WTA final in Eastbourne, but she has now made it clear that her career goals are much greater than that.
Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesAlexandra Eala states that she wants to become world number one
Eala is still only 20 years old, and has just become the first Filipina to win a Grand Slam match in the Open Era after beating Clara Tauson in a dramatic first round match at the US Open.
Prior to the US Open even getting underway, she spoke to tennis journalist Jon Wertheim, who asked Eala about some of her goals going forward.
While Eala is very aware of the challenges that stand in her way, she has stated that she wants to become a Grand Slam champion and world number one.
“Of course I have always been very ambitious from when I was young,” said Eala. “Everybody’s dream is to become world number one and to win Grand Slams, and the better I get the more I see how hard it is to achieve that.
“But, my belief is so strong, there’s no doubts, so my goals are exactly that to be number one and win Slams, but more than that it’s just to reach my full potential.”
Eala is currently the world number 75, but has a career-high ranking of world number 56.
Alexandra Eala reveals the unusual surface that she played on as a child that is not on the WTA Tour
Not only has Eala come a long way from the start of the 2025 season, but also a long way from the courts she was playing on as a child growing up in The Philippines.
This is something that Wertheim asked her about, with Eala revealing that she actually played on ‘shell courts’, which she compared to clay.
However, Eala quickly realised that these courts would not be present on the professional circuit, so she quickly switched to practicing more on hard courts.
“Well yeah, we have a surface in The Philippines called shell court,” said Eala. “I am not exactly sure what it is, by the name it is probably like crushed up shells and you know a lot of other stuff. I would say it’s more similar to clay, but I have never seen it outside of The Philippines.
“That being said, when I started to compete or really train hard, we would play mostly on hard court, because we knew in the long term that there wasn’t any shell courts abroad, so we would try to do hard court all the time.”
Her practice on hard courts has helped her knock out a seeded player at the US Open, and now Eala will play Cristina Bucsa for a place in the third round.
This is a second-time meeting between the pair, with Eala narrowly beating Bucsa on the hard courts at a lower-level ITF event in Grenoble when she was just 15 years old.