{"id":533308,"date":"2026-07-04T22:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T22:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/533308\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T22:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T22:05:12","slug":"wimbledon-2026-results-alexandra-eala-dedicates-iga-swiatek-victory-to-all-the-girls-with-ruffled-socks-and-chubby-cheeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/533308\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon 2026 results: Alexandra Eala dedicates Iga Swiatek victory to ‘all the girls with ruffled socks and chubby cheeks’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eala played tennis as a youngster with her brother and grandfather, telling BBC TV she “still can’t keep up” with her older brother, even now.<\/p>\n

She first rose to prominence in 2022, when she was on the cover of Vogue in her home country after becoming the first Filipina to win a junior Grand Slam title with her US Open triumph.<\/p>\n

She rose to wider notice after her 2025 Miami Open breakthrough – which ironically began with another victory over Swiatek.<\/p>\n

Aged 19 and ranked outside the top 100, Eala took out Grand Slam champions Swiatek, Jelena Ostapenko and Madison Keys to reach the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Since then, she has reached the world’s top 30, claimed two titles on the second-tier WTA 125 tournaments and finished runner-up at Eastbourne last year.<\/p>\n

In the build-up to this year’s Wimbledon, she beat world number two Elena Rybakina and eighth-ranked Elina Svitolina in Berlin, and also teamed up with Venus Williams in doubles.<\/p>\n

Her success has meant her popularity sky-rocketed. Queues snake around the Grand Slam grounds when she is scheduled on an outside court, while viewing parties are held for her matches back home.<\/p>\n

That brings with it a pressure both good and bad. If Eala’s wins are celebrated as a point of national pride in the Philippines, then her losses are also felt deeply.<\/p>\n

It was a situation that got on top of her at the Australian Open, where she was overwhelmed<\/a> by the amount of people who simply queued to watch her practice.<\/p>\n

“I try to be as authentic as I can. I believe in being genuine,” Eala said.<\/p>\n

“Although I’m very grateful and very welcoming of all the support that I get, me, my team and my family are the ones who have been putting in the hours. <\/p>\n

“We’re the ones who are here at the courts 12 hours in a row. We’re the ones who wake up early, who come back home late.<\/p>\n

“I think that work ethic is really what keeps me grounded.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eala played tennis as a youngster with her brother and grandfather, telling BBC TV she “still can’t keep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-533308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}