ALEX Eala of the Philippines faces wildcard Mika Stojsavljevic of Great Britain to begin her campaign at the WTA 500 Tokyo Open in Japan.
World No. 20 and tournament No. 8 seed Eala takes on No. 308 Stojsavljevic likely on Monday.
Ahead of their clash, Eala is expected to climb to No. 19 in the rankings while Stojsavljevic to drop to No. 411 as reflected in Sunday's live rankings.
Only 17 years old and just about to finish her first season on the WTA Tour, Stojsavljevic sports a career-high rank of No. 261 achieved last June.
Finding herself the superior player again, the 21-year-old Eala seeks to avoid another upset loss in her penultimate tournament of the year.
Eala holds a 1-3 win-loss card this Asian Swing with two of her losses coming against lower-ranked players.
The lefty fell to world No. 180 Tatiana Prozorova at the Singapore Open second round last month, and then to No. 217 Shi Han at the Wuhan Open first round two weeks ago.
Eala ended her string of upset defeats at the Ningbo Open where she topped world No. 34 Diane Parry in the first round, 6-3, 6-1.
The Filipino tennis ace then fell to world No. 13 Diana Shnaider in the second round, 5-7, 4-6, last Thursday.
In Tokyo, Eala aims to finally get past the second round.
If she gets past Stojsavljevic, Eala will face either world No. 42 Talia Gibson or a qualifier in the second round.
Eala will also see in doubles with Filipino-American and 13-time doubles champ Desirae Krawczyk.
Eala and Krawczyk will face the Taiwanese-Japanese duo of Chan Hao-Ching and Miyu Kato in the first round.
Ranked No. 32 in doubles, the 32-year-old Krawczyk entered the consciousness of Filipino tennis fans after an appearance on "The Players Box" podcast last March.
In the podcast, Krawczyk said that her Filipino mom, Maria, is an Eala fan so devoted that she planned on watching Eala at the Dubai Tennis Championships last February, almost forgetting that her daughter Desirae would be playing on the same date.
Eala played and lost against Coco Gauff in the quarterfinal, 0-6, 2-6, on Feb. 19.
Desirae and Lyudmyla Kichenok battled Aleksandra Krunić and Anna Danilina in doubles on the same date, losing their quarterfinal match, 1-6, 6-4, 6-10.
"She's like 'I'm going to come watch her when she plays on Thursday [against Gauff]'," shared Desirae.
"And I was like, 'Mom, I'm going to be playing on Thursday.' She's like, 'Oh, oh, yes, you too. Yes, yes. I'm going to watch you too!'"
A few weeks later at Indian Wells in March, Desirae shared that her mother planned on cooking pancit and lumpia for Alex.
"She’s like, ‘I’m gonna make her pancit,’ which is a famous noodle dish in the Philippines, and then lumpia, which is like these egg rolls," said Desirae in the podcast.
"I told Alex about it, and she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I would love that.’ And if I tell my mom that, my mom will probably make like three big bowls of noodles."
