-A laser-focused Alex Eala held nothing back in practice on Tuesday ahead of her highly anticipated main draw debut at the Singapore Open.
Eala was all business even in training with hitting partner Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich under the guidance of her Spanish assistant coach Sandro Viaene at practice court 2 inside the Kallang sports complex here.
Eala, the WTA 500 event’s headliner, is seeded third in the indoor hard-court tournament at OCBC Arena.
The 21-year-old Eala, who drew a first-round bye, begins her campaign in the round of 16 either on Wednesday or Thursday against the winner of the opening-round duel between Russia’s Tatiana Prozorova and Belgium’s Sofia Costoulas set later in the afternoon at Court 1.
The schedule will be finalized later tonight, according to organizers.
Playing close to home, Eala is the regional favorite with a favorable bottom half draw.
Eala won’t cross paths with a top-10 caliber player until the semifinal, where she’s projected to meet American World No. 11 Amanda Anisimova.
Russian World No. 5 Mirra Andreeva, who replaced Jessica Pegula as the tournament top seed, leads the top half of the bracket.
The Singapore Open also serves as Eala’s warm-up to the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026.
The Filipino World No. 18 is the consensus favorite to win the gold in the Japan Games, where she’s the highest-ranked player.
What was expected to be a stacked Asiad women’s singles draw was thinned out with other stars like Kazakh World No. 1 Elena Rybakina, four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka and Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen skipping the continental meet due to a scheduling conflict with the mandatory WTA 1000 China Open in Beijing.