Tennis rising star Alex Eala breaks a Southeast Asian tennis record untouched for 24 years

The Filipina has moved beyond a ranking ceiling shared by two of the region’s most accomplished women's tennis players.

Photo via Tennis Channel (YouTube)

Alex Eala is now ranked No. 18 in women’s singles, the highest position ever reached by a Southeast Asian woman in the WTA rankings. The 21-year-old Filipina surpassed the career-high No. 19 rankings of Indonesia’s Yayuk Basuki and Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn, who last occupied that ranking in 2002.

Eala highlighted t…