{"id":1463,"date":"2026-07-25T23:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1463"},"modified":"2026-07-25T23:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:42:14","slug":"how-alex-ealas-wimbledon-run-made-everyday-filipinos-fall-in-love-with-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1463","title":{"rendered":"How Alex Eala’s Wimbledon run made everyday Filipinos fall in love with tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"How<\/div>

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Chasing her dream of becoming a world tennis champion, teen athlete Maristella Torrecampo and her father took a gruelling 13-hour bus from her sleepy hillside hometown for her latest match in Manila.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 14-year-old’s mum and four siblings could not join to watch her play; her crowdfunded budget was only enough for two round-trip bus tickets and a few days’ worth of meals.<\/p>\n

Barely rested from the long journey, and with only her father cheering her on, Torrecampo crushed her Omani opponent in straight sets 6-1, 6-1 on that sweltering Tuesday afternoon at the Rizal Stadium, keeping alive her dream of following in the footsteps of Alexandra Eala, the country’s newest sports star.<\/p>\n

Torrecampo competed in Manila in July as the Philippines was celebrating Eala’s historic Wimbledon run – one that Torrecampo and the entire nation followed on streaming and social media.<\/p>\n

Eala, 21, went the farthest any Filipina had gone in a Grand Slam event, reaching the fourth round and eliminating defending champion Iga Swiatek of Poland along the way.<\/p>\n

Since her breakout semi-final performance at the Miami Open last year, Eala has re-ignited interest in tennis in the Philippines, a country obsessed with the three B’s – basketball, boxing and beauty queens.<\/p>\n

To young tennis players like Torrecampo, Eala is an inspiration.<\/p>\n

“Like Ate Alex, I want to win at Wimbledon, WTA, and various tournaments around the world,” Torrecampo said, referring to Eala with the Filipino word for elder sister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chasing her dream of becoming a world tennis champion, teen athlete Maristella Torrecampo and her father took a gruelling 13-hour bus from her sleepy hillside hometown for her latest match in Manila. The 14-year-old’s mum and four siblings could not join to watch her play; her crowdfunded budget was only enough for two round-trip bus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/6249\/live\/bc091200-873a-11f1-a10e-a5d4f08bc20c.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2885,2886,2887,1623,2888,1408,1262,1082,942],"class_list":["post-1463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","tag-alex","tag-ealas","tag-everyday","tag-fall","tag-filipinos","tag-love","tag-run","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}