ALEX Eala made a strong start to her Asian Games gold-medal bid, sweeping Thailand’s Patcharin Cheapchandej, 6-1, 6-0, on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, to advance to the women’s singles quarterfinals in Nagoya, Japan.
The top-seeded Eala needed just 55 minutes to dispatch the Thai veteran in a rain-delayed Round of 16 match at the Indoor Court C of the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center.
Persistent rain disrupted the tennis schedule and forced organizers to move matches indoors before Eala finally took the court.
The world No. 18 Filipina quickly established control and never allowed Cheapchandej to settle into the match, dropping just one game in the opening set before completing a dominant straight-set victory.
Eala entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed and received a first-round bye. Cheapchandej, ranked outside the top 500, reached the Round of 16 after defeating Pakistan’s Mahin Aftab Qureshi, 6-1, 6-1.
The victory also gave Eala a quick response following her early exit from the Singapore Open last week, where she fell to Russia’s Tatiana Prozorova in three sets.
Eala will next face Chinese Taipei’s Joanna Garland in the quarterfinals.
The Filipina is seeking to improve on the two bronze medals she won at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, where she also reached the podium in the women’s singles and mixed doubles.
Eala is also entered in the women’s doubles competition with Shaira Rivera.
Her emphatic opening victory keeps alive her bid to claim the Philippines’ first Asian Games women’s singles tennis gold. / LBG
