MANILA, Philippines \u2014 Labeled an underdog on paper, Alex Eala walks into her French Open first-round showdown with American Iva Jovic carrying something far more dangerous than rankings \u2014 belief.<\/p>\n
Jovic, currently world No. 17, holds the statistical edge over the No. 38-ranked Eala and arrives with momentum after a quarterfinal finish at the Australian Open earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In contrast, Eala\u2019s campaign there ended abruptly in the opening round.<\/p>\n
But numbers rarely tell Eala\u2019s full story.<\/p>\n
Time and again, the Filipina has thrived when the stakes are highest.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Eala has already proven she can topple the sport\u2019s elite, owning victories over Grand Slam champions Iga Swiatek, Madison Keys, and Jelena Ostapenko. She has also taken down top-tier players like reigning French Open champion Coco Gauff and Jasmine Paolini \u2014 a resume that speaks louder than any seeding.<\/p>\n Against Jovic, Eala is expected to bring that same fire.<\/p>\n Adding intrigue to the clash is their off-court friendship \u2014 one that will be put on hold as both players chase a place in the second round. TMT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANILA, Philippines \u2014 Labeled an underdog on paper, Alex Eala walks into her French Open first-round showdown with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1050,1053,248,1047,1054,1051,378,517,1052,1048,1049],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australian-open","tag-ahead","tag-at","tag-australian-open","tag-eala","tag-french","tag-jovic","tag-of","tag-open","tag-showdown","tag-tagged","tag-underdog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}