MANILA, Philippines – Alex Eala was 15 years old, still four months away from turning 16, when she won her first title in the pro tour. In clinching the International Tennis Federation (ITF) W15 Manacor in Spain in 2021, Eala earned $2,352, which was around P112,000 that time.
Fast forward to the 2025 Wimbledon Championships where Eala was given an automatic spot in the women’s singles main draw by virtue of her surge in the world rankings — she got rewarded with £66,000, around P5 million, despite a first-round exit after dropping a three-setter to defending champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic.
This is the lucrative world of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) that Eala has stepped into.
According to Forbes Magazine, the top earning female athlete for 2024 was Coco Gauff, who banked an estimated $34.4 million from her winnings on the tour and endorsements. This was the second straight year that the 21-year-old American topped the list.
Seven out of the top 10 highest paid sportswomen were all tennis players, including second on the list Iga Swiatek of Poland with earnings of $23.8 million. China’s Qinwen Zheng who ranked fourth, and world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus at fifth.
The world’s No. 1 female golfer, Nelly Korda of the United States, was merely eighth in the list. American superstar gymnast Simone Biles ranked 10th. Freestyle skier Eileen Gu of China was listed at third, while the biggest name in women’s basketball, Caitlyn Clark of the Indiana Fever, ranked 11th.
There are three levels of competition in the women’s pro tour, each one differentiated by the number of points and prize money offered.
The lowest level is the ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour, considered the developmental circuit where players typically start their careers. The prize money for champions in this level of competition ranges from as low as $956 for W15 events to as high as $15,000 for W100 events.
The second-tier tournaments called the WTA 125 Series, or sometimes known as Challenger events, offer $16,700 and up.
The highest level, of course, is the WTA Tour which includes the four Grand Slam events and the money-rich year-end WTA Finals exclusively for the top eight players in the world, plus the WTA 1000, WTA 500, and WTA 250 tournaments.
Eala’s previous biggest windfalls happened in two tournaments in 2024. In May, she made €30,255 (at least P2 million) for reaching the second round of the WTA 1000 Mutua Madrid Open.
Three months later, she emerged champion of the ITF W100 Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain, in the process taking home around $15,000 (or roughly P850,000).
Then came 2025.