Alex Eala earns over $900K in prize money after banner year — but there’s more to it

MANILA, Philippines – Filipina tennis star Alex Eala concludes a scintillating 2025 not only with several milestones under her belt but also with deeper pockets.

Peaking at a career-high No. 50 and currently sitting at No. 53 in the WTA rankings, Eala ends the year in the top 100 of the 2025 WTA prize money leaders with earnings of $907,777 (over P53 million) for the 74th spot.

Eala more than tripled her earnings after raking in $289,628 in 2024, where she placed No. 159 in prize money.

So, how did Eala win that much?

Reward for winning

The more prestigious the tournament is and the farther the player goes, the bigger the prize money is.

When it comes to the top-tier WTA Tour, the four Grand Slams — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open — offer the biggest purse. 

This year, all of the Grand Slam champions in singles play received at least $2.5 million, with the biggest coming from the US Open as men’s winner Carlos Alcaraz and women’s titlist Aryna Sabalenka got $5 million each.

Alcaraz and Sabalakena topped the prize money ladder for the ATP and WTA in 2025 with $21,354,778 and $15,008,519, respectively.

Below the Grand Slams are the WTA 1000, WTA 500, and WTA 250 tournaments. Then there is the WTA 125 or WTA Challengers, which is the second-highest level of women’s competition, a rung below the WTA Tour. 

It was in a WTA 1000 event, the Miami Open, where Eala won her biggest prize money as she pocketed $332,160, following her historic run to the semifinals that saw her beat Grand Slam champions Iga Swiatek, Madison Keys, and Jelena Ostapenko.

But perhaps more important than the prize money were the crucial points Eala gained that allowed her to enter the world top 100 for the first time  — the Filipina jumping from No. 140 to a then-career-high No. 75 by the end of March. 

Cracking the top 100 meant direct entry to Grand Slams, where a single appearance in the main draw guarantees a bigger prize money than a deep run in lower-tier tournaments.

For example, Eala made $84,452 from her first-round exit in the French Open in May, which is more than double her purse of $30,380 when she advanced to the final of the WTA 250 Eastbourne Open in Great Britain in June.

Nevertheless, both were historic feats for Eala, who became the first Filipino to play in a Grand Slam main draw and the first Filipino to reach the final of a WTA Tour event — both in the Open era. 

Eala then bagged $89,465 in Wimbledon in July and $154,000 the following month in the US Open, where she claimed another piece of history as the first Filipino to win a Grand Slam main draw match in the Open era when she stunned then-world No. 15 Clara Tauson in the first round.

Although Eala lost to Cristina Bucsa in the second round, the momentum from that breakthrough win seemed to have carried over to the Guadalajara Open in Mexico in September as she won her first-ever WTA Challenger crown, earning $15,500. 

Her other five-figure purses came from the WTA 1000 Madrid Open (round of 64, $35,260), Australian Open (qualifying first round, $22,091), WTA 1000 Italian Open (round of 128, $15,120), and WTA 1000 Canadian Open (round of 128, $12,770).

Overall, Eala won $851,582 in singles and $56,195 in doubles on tour this 2025. 

She will also get P300,000 from the government as incentive for winning the gold medal in women’s singles in the Southeast Asian Games in Thailand this December.

Money comes and goes

But does Eala get to keep it all? Of course not, as players get taxed in the countries where the tournaments are held.

For example, foreign players who win prize money in the United States are generally subject to a standard withholding tax of 30%. In France, non-resident athletes normally face a 15% withholding tax on income sourced in the country. 

“After you finish your tournament, it’s time to get your prize money. The sad part about it is that you have to pay taxes,” said current world No. 37 Daria Kasatkina, who ranked 33rd among the WTA prize money leaders for 2025 with $1,443,297, in a 2023 YouTube vlog detailing the realities on tour. 

“We are paying taxes in the country where we earned this money, straight away. We’re coming to the prize money office, they give us a paper, receipt, and there is the prize money with the deducted taxes.”

Kasatkina, who owns eight WTA Tour titles and achieved a career-high ranking of No. 8, said players also hire tax consultants, whose services cost money as well. 

“It’s just impossible for the tennis player to know all the tax laws in every country of the world. Nobody wants to go to jail,” Kasatkina said. 

Other out-of-pocket expenses include airfare, transportation, food, lodging, and incidentals. 

In 2025, Eala played 27 tournaments on tour across 16 countries: Australia, India, Singapore, Slovakia, United States, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Great Britain, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China, Japan, and Hong Kong. 

Expenses for those trips can become enormous when added up, much more if a player is traveling with a coach and other members of her team. In the case of Eala, she has two coaches in Joan Bosch and Sandro Viaene from the Rafa Nadal Academy.

On top of the travel costs, players with weaker passports like Eala have to work on their visas, with some needing to tap the services of travel agencies. The Philippines ranks 77th in the Henley Passport Index, behind fellow Southeast Asian countries Singapore (1st), Malaysia (10th), Thailand (63rd) and Indonesia (68th).

“What’s challenging is being able to travel with flexibility. For me, I find the visas challenging, being able to plan, because as a tennis player, you need time to organize all of this every single time to have the visas ready,” Eala said in April. 

Fortunately, WTA Tour events provide players with free hotel accommodation. 

Singles players in the main draw of a WTA 250 tournament, for example, get a minimum of a five-night stay, although those in the qualifying receive only a minimum of two nights. 

The WTA also requires tournaments to provide complimentary food and drinks for players, plus their two guests at WTA 1000 and WTA 500 events, or one guest at WTA 250 events. 

“Different tournaments have different systems. Some of the tournaments, they give, for example, free meals for the player plus coach. And then for the other members of your team, you have to pay from your pocket. Or some of the tournaments, they just have a restaurant and everyone with the credential, they can just come and eat as much as they want,” said Kasatkina.

Then the players have to pay members of their team, from salaries to bonuses. 

“All the players have different agreements with their teams, but trust me, it is a lot of money. Tennis players are paying everything by themselves,” said Kasatkina.

For ATP player Karue Sell, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 258, playing professional tennis is like “burning money away.”

In 2024, Sell spent a total of $39,137, which is more than the $38,051 prize money he earned before tax. And his costs did not include a coach. 

Money for some players like Sell, though, is not everything. 

Sell turned a profit in 2025 as he pocketed $38,258 against expenses of $14,563, but he admitted the the season felt like a “failure” after injuries cut his year short. At 32 years old, he knows he is near the twilight of his career. 

“I want to continue to face great players,” said Sell in his YouTube vlog discussing his 2025 season. “I want to earn their respect.”

“Having your peers’ respect is a huge currency in sports. I think in everything, really. We all want to feel that mutual respect between competitors.”

Still only 20 years old, Eala has her whole career ahead of her to earn more money and command the respect of her foes — her status as the fifth-highest ranked under-21 female player in the world a proof of her steady rise.

Eala now turns her focus to the Australian Open in January, where she competes in the main draw for the first time. – Rappler.com