Alex Eala Falls in Kallang: Her Singapore Open Loss, Explained in Simple Numbers

You filled the seats. The flags came out, the "Let's go, Alex!" chants rolled around the OCBC Arena, and for one set it looked like the night would end the way we wanted. It did not. On Thursday, 24 September, Alex Eala lost her opening match at the Singapore Tennis Open to Russia's Tatiana Prozorova, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, after three hours and nine minutes.

Masakit, pero kaya nating intindihin. If you are not a tennis person and the scoreline confused you, this guide breaks down what happened, one number at a time.

The match in one minute

Alex came in as the third seed, which meant she skipped the first round and started in the round of 16. Prozorova is world No. 180. Alex is No. 18. That is a gap of 162 places, so on paper this was Alex's match to lose.

Here is how the three sets went:

She made chances but did not cash in. Alex had 17 break points, five more than Prozorova. She converted six. Prozorova had 12 and converted seven. Think of break points as penalty kicks in football. Alex got more of them. Prozorova scored more.

It was no blowout. Across 231 points, Prozorova won 118 and Alex won 113. Flip three or four points at the right moments in the second set and we would be talking about a quarterfinal.

How big a surprise was this?

Big. It was Alex's first loss this year to a player ranked outside the top 100. Her closest call before Thursday was a loss to world No. 99 Alycia Parks at the Australian Open. Counting 2025, one defeat ranks as a bigger upset by the numbers: a loss to world No. 305 Claire Liu in Guangzhou last year.

For Prozorova, it was the biggest win of her career and her first against a top-40 player. She was in tears after match point.

Alex also came in cold. This was her first match since her US Open loss to Iva Jovic on 6 September, and the indoor court at Kallang plays slower than the outdoor hard courts where she has done her best work.

What the loss costs her

Because Alex had a bye, losing her first match counts as a first-round exit for points and pay.

After the match, Alex gave Prozorova credit and said she and her team would "take the time to analyse, take the time to learn."

What comes next

There is a silver lining. Alex now gets extra rest before the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, where tennis starts on Sunday, 27 September. She goes in as a gold-medal favourite in women's singles, with several top players skipping the Games for the China Open. She also plays mixed doubles. At the last Asian Games in Hangzhou, she took bronze in both events. The women's singles final is set for Friday, 2 October.

If you caught our guide to watching her in Kallang and made it to the OCBC Arena on Thursday, you saw a Filipina fight for three hours in front of a crowd that sounded like home. That part went right. Keep the flags handy. Nagoya is next, and the group chat will need you.