Alex Eala was one point from the ASB Classic final, one swing from crossing another threshold. Instead, the Auckland night tilted the other way, and the semifinal of the season’s first WTA 250 turned into a bruising lesson in fine margins.
Filipina tennis star Alexandra Eala barely allowed the clock to catch its breath at the ASB Classic on Thursday, needing just 63 minutes to dismantle Croatia’s Petra Marcinko 6-0, 6-2 and stride into the quarterfinals of the WTA 250 event, her first of the 2026 season.
Under the merciless noon sun of Bangkok, Alex Eala didn’t just play tennis—she settled unfinished business 26 years in the making. The 20-year-old Filipino star dismantled Thailand’s Mananchaya Sawangkaew, 6–1, 6–2, to end the Philippines’ long gold-medal drought in women’s singles at the Southeast Asian Games.
Barely five years ago, Alex Eala was a 15-year-old prodigy from the Rafael Nadal Academy, armed with a booming forehand and a fire that refused to dim. Today, she’s cracked the Top 50 — the highest ranking ever achieved by a Filipino tennis player.
The University Athletic Association of the Philippines has cleared Ateneo de Manila University to compete in Season 89 despite the June 8 team-building tragedy in Dipaculao, Aurora that claimed the lives of student-athletes Rene Clert Baterbonia and Chukwuemeka Divine Adili, while imposing a lifetime ban on former Blue Eagles head coach Thomas Anthony Baldwin and suspending seven other members of the team’s coaching and support staff.
Accessibility is often measured in inches and angles, in ramps, elevators, doorways, and pathways. But its real measure is simpler. It is whether a place allows people to move through it with dignity, independence, and ease.
SMX Convention Centers is expanding its footprint as the Philippine business events industry gathers momentum, with visitor traffic rising 18 percent in the first half of 2026 and new venues in Cebu and Metro Manila set to add capacity.
Universal Robina Corp. (URC) has inaugurated a P2.75-billion manufacturing complex in Malvar, Batangas, expanding its production capacity as the Filipino food company seeks to meet rising demand at home and strengthen its position in export markets.