Who is Alex Eala’s first-round opponent at Wuhan Open and when will the match take place?
Alex Eala will make her return to the WTA Tour at next week’s Wuhan Open and her first opponent has been confirmed as the qualifiers have been placed.
The Filipina missed the China Open as she represented the Philippines at the Asian Games in Tokyo, Japan, claiming bronze after losing in the semi-final against eventual gold medallist Wang Xiyu from China.
The 21-year-old will next feature at the Wuhan WTA 1000 event and she is seeded 13th, but won’t have a bye into the second round as it is a 56-player singles draw tournament with only the top eight seeds bypassing the first round.
Eala landed in the bottom half when the draw was made on Saturday with her first-round opponent a yet-to-be determined qualifier as the tournament was still in progress.
That event has now been completed and the world No 18 will start her campaign against Shi Han from China.
Who Is Shi Han?
The 21-year-old currently sits at No 231 in the WTA Rankings, 31 places above her career-high of No 200, which she achieved in March 2025.
Shi is yet to feature in the main draw of a Grand Slam with her best performances coming last year when she lost in the first round of qualifying at the Australian Open and French Open.
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She has won seven ITF singles titles with the most recent coming at the W15 ITF Tianjin in China in August this year.
The Chinese youngster received a wildcard entry into the Wuhan qualifying tournament and stunned top seed and world No 36 Peyton Stearns in three sets in the first round before beating 15th seed and world No 76 Kamilla Rakhimova in the second round to secure a ticket into the main draw.
When Is The Match?
Eela and Shi will play on the opening day of the main draw competition on Monday, 12 October on the outdoor hard courts at the Optics Valley International Tennis Center.
They will have top billing as they will play in the evening, but the feature match of the day will be between Chinese stars Wang Xiy and Wang Xin with that encounter scheduled to get underway at 19:30 local time (11:30 GMT).
The Eala-Shi match will follow immediately after that clash with the starting time likely to be 21:00 local time (13:00 GMT).
The winner will face Ekaterina Alexandrova or Leylah Fernandez in the third round with second seed Jessica Pegula a likely third-round opponent.