MANILA, Philippines — Filipino tennis ace Alex Eala faces points penalty and fines if she skips the Beijing Open to play for the Philippines at the Asian Games in Nagoya without a Women's Tennis Association (WTA) exemption.
The Beijing Open is one of the 10 mandatory 1000-tier tournaments in the WTA calendar, with this year's edition running from September 30 to October 11.
That runs smack into the Asian Games tennis play slated from September 27 to October 3.
As a high-ranking player, world No. 18 Eala is contractually obliged to participate in Beijing. She faces point penalty and fines without the WTA exemption which is usually granted to players dealing with injuries or personal matters.
The Philippine Tennis Association (Philta) said it's asking the WTA to grant Eala an exemption.
If the WTA denies Philta's request, a zero-pointer will be forced on Eala's Beijing 1000 slot in the scoring system.
She could not replace that with a better 1000 tournament performance since it's part of the 11 mandatory competitions including the 4 Grand Slams.
With a "0" forced into her total, the WTA scoring system will wipe out her lowest scoring tournament from her "7 Best Other" slots (125s, 250s, 500s) to keep her total tournaments at 18.
Things would have been worse for Eala if she is to defend points in Beijing but she's not thanks to her non-participation last year.
If Eala gets an exemption, the scoring system will leave her Beijing Open slot as blank and count her 17 other tournaments for her total.
That lowest scoring output from her 7 best other tournaments will not be wiped out.
If the WTA does not grant Eala an exemption, she will have to pay fines and even lose year-end bonuses amounting to thousands of dollars.
