Eala Wins First Career WTA Title With DC Triumph
The breakthrough summer, and 2026, of the Philippines’ Alexandra Eala continued in our nation’s capital this past week, as Eala captured the first WTA title of her career. Eala defeated American Jessica Pegula 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the Mubadala DC Open final which was suspended on Sunday and finished on Monday.
In doing so, Eala becomes the first woman from the Philippines to win a WTA title.
“I think I warmed up a thousand times,” Eala said of the rain delay. “It was difficult. I think, at the same time, it’s happened to me a lot; rain delays a lot of times in my life. I think this is another one of those, although it was a lot higher stakes. But I think I was able to take my time and take those learnings from the first half of the match and do my best to apply them in the second [set], and I think it worked pretty well.”
When Eala and Pegula returned to the court on Monday, Pegula led 6-4, 1-2. Pegula won three of the first four games after the restart to lead 4-3 in the second set, but from there, the match was all Eala.
The 21-year-old Eala won the final nine games of the match to storm her way to a maiden career title.
“At the beginning of the week, there is no way I would have thought that I would be holding this trophy. These things kind of creep up on you, and I hold these moments really close to me,” said Eala. “Coming into the tournament, I knew that the competition was super strong and my draw was quite tough. Every match was a different set of obstacles. So I’m really, really proud. I think I encountered my fair share of obstacles this week. I think I ended the tournament in better shape than I started. I think each match I kept improving and kept learning things about myself. So [it] definitely gives me a lot of confidence and it’s really nice to see all the things that I have been working on off court or during training being implemented in matches.”
Eala climbs eight spots to No. 20 in the world rankings, while Pegula holds steady at No. 3.
