Alexandra Eala at the 2026 US Open: what is settled and what is not

If you searched for this hoping to find out who she plays in the first round, the honest answer is that nobody knows, including her. The draw has not been made. Everything below is what can actually be confirmed as of August 5, 2026.

She is in, on ranking

Eala appeared on the official US Open women's singles entry list published in July, before she won Washington. Aryna Sabalenka, the back-to-back defending champion, heads that list. Eala needs no wildcard and no qualifying.

Her ranking has moved since then. She was No. 28 when the entry list came out and No. 20 after the DC Open title, which affects her seeding rather than her place in the field.

The mixed doubles is the genuinely new thing

The US Open has rebuilt its mixed doubles event, and Eala is entered with the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime. Entry lists for it were published in late July and updated in early August.

This is worth flagging because the revamped format is compressed and scheduled around the main draw rather than buried inside it, which makes it much easier to actually watch than mixed doubles has historically been. It also gives Filipino fans a second reason to circle the calendar, and a new flag to wave at a doubles court.

What is not decided yet

• Her seeding. Seeds come from the rankings published closer to the tournament, not from today's list.
• Her first-round opponent. No draw, no opponent. Reporting has pointed to the singles draws being revealed in the week before the main draw begins.
• Her schedule. Which day and which court she plays is set after the draw, session by session.

Where she is playing before New York

She did not take the week off. Eala went from Washington straight into the National Bank Open in Toronto, where she was drawn against the American Alycia Parks, one of the biggest servers on tour, in the second round. The Cincinnati Open follows, and she appears on its player list.

That is the standard North American hard-court run into the US Open, and it is a lot of tennis immediately after winning a title.

A homecoming, whichever name comes out of the draw

Short, and about to get much more interesting. In the 2025 main draw she lost in the second round to Cristina Bucsa. The happier memory is older: in 2022, at seventeen, she won the US Open girls' singles title on these same courts in Flushing Meadows, the first junior Grand Slam singles title ever won by a Filipino player.

So whoever the draw eventually hands her, this trip to New York is a homecoming. The teenager who lifted the junior trophy in 2022 walks back through the same gates this month as the world No. 20, with a tour title in her bag and a doubles partner waiting. Four years is not a long time. It only looks that way from the baseline.