First-ever Philippine Open fires off with qualifiers

MANILA, Philippines -- The trailblazing Philippine Women’s Open gets underway Saturday, January 24, starting with the qualifying rounds before the highly-anticipated main draw on Monday at the refurbished Rizal Memorial Tennis Center in Manila.

Sixteen players are listed in the qualifying round to slug it out for the four remaining slots in the 32-player main draw featuring the 20-year-old Filipina sensation Alex Eala as one of the top-ranked players worldwide at WTA No. 49.

Among those are Filipina-Australian Lizette Cabrera, WTA No. 276 and pre-qualifiers runner-up Elizabeth Abarquez of National University.

The other four slots are wildcards with the Philippines getting three of those as host of the first-ever WTA 125 tourney here rolling until Jan. 31.

UAAP Most Valuable Player Kaye Ann Emana of University of Santo Tomas, who beat Marquez in the pre-qualifiers finals, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2, was upgraded from the qualifying draw straight to the main draw as a wildcard.

She will join Eala and Philippines No. 2 Tenny Madis in the main draw, where the big guns are waiting led by 2022 Wimbledon semifinalist and world No. 42 Tatjana Maria of Germany.

Maria, the oldest WTA champion at 38, will be the PWO’s top-seed followed by No. 46 Wang Xinyu of China along with Eala, No. 59 Janice Tjen of Indonesia, No. 63 Solana Sierra of Argentina, No. 72 Vekic of Croatia, No. 76 Kimberly Birrell of Australia and No. 84 Camila Osorio of Colombia.

A total of 24 listed players in the PWO including Eala also saw action in the Australian Open, making it a star-studded and ultra-competitive slugfest as the country eyes to be a staple stop in the WTA Tour from here on with an expected bid for a higher 250-level tourney next year.

For Eala, the PWO will serve as her first home tournament as a pro or since her last Philippine junior stint in 2018 at the Phinma-PSC International Junior Tennis Championships at the Manila Polo Club. She studied as a scholar of the Rafael Nadal Academy in Spain since then.

After the soldout PWO, Eala will head back overseas for the rest of the WTA Tour starting with a qualifying round ticket in the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open on Feb. 1 to 7 in the United Arab Emirates.

Eala, on the heels of a banner 2025 campaign, started her 2026 season with a Final Four finish at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand and exhibition championship in the Kooyong Classic in Melbourne.

She’s the first Filipina to ever play in the Australian Open main draw last week also in Melbourne albeit she absorbed first-round exits both in the singles and doubles plays.

Eala, the first Filipina in the Top 50 as well, bowed to No. 99 Alycia Parks of the United States, 6-0, 3-6, 2-6, in the singles first round.

It’s the same fate in the doubles for Eala with Brazilian partner Ingrid Martins (WTA doubles No. 80), exiting with a 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, 3-6 defeat to Japan’s Shuko Aoyama (WTA doubles No. 52) and Poland’s Magda Linette (WTA singles No. 50 and doubles No. 140) in the opener.