FILIPINO tennis ace Alexandra “Alex” Eala and American legend Venus Williams continue their preparation for the WTA 500 Mubadala D.C. Open doubles in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
The tournament’s official Instagram page posted late Friday night a video of Eala and Williams strategizing and playing against a pair of men.
The 21-year-old Eala and 46-year-old Williams first teamed up at the Bad Homburg Open in Germany, where they made a quarterfinal finish.
Eala will also see action in the singles division in Washington.
The draw ceremony for the singles and doubles divisions is set early Sunday in Manila.
Main draw matches start on Monday.
Eala is the ninth highest-ranked player in the singles tournament, just outside the eight seeded players.
The top four players who will also receive a first-round bye are Jessica Pegula, Elina Svitolina, Naomi Osaka and Diana Shaider.
Completing the top eight are Anna Kalinksaya, Madison Keys, defending champ Leylah Fernandez and Katie Boulder, who won’t receive first-round byes but will be drawn against lower-ranked players.
Following a historic Wimbledon run where she became the first Filipino singles player to reach the fourth round, Eala elevated to a career-best rank of No. 28 on July 13 before a slip to No. 29 on July 20.
The 21-year-old is in perfect position to boost her ranking, though, with only 70 points to defend for the entirety of the North American swing.
Eala claimed those 70 points from her second-round appearance at the US Open.
That low output last year becomes a perfect launching pad for Eala to further climb up the ladder.
Any decent run Eala could make in the 500 Mubadala D.C. Open, 1000 Toronto Open, or the Cincinnati 1000 Open — her three stops before the US Open — will inject fresh ranking points to her record.
A quarterfinal finish at Mubadala would move the needle for Eala, who stands to gain 108 ranking points and eclipse the 70 she earned during last year’s North American swing in just her first tournament of this year’s campaign.
Eala sports a total of 1,666 ranking points and is poised to enter the top 25 or even top 20 with one deep run in any of the aforementioned tournaments.
Eala needs to stay in top 32 of the rankings in US Open seeding cutoff on Aug. 24 to secure a seed in the final major of the year.
