LET HER COOK!

This is why we can't have good things.

The perk of watching sports online is that we don't need to monitor the action on the TV set. It's easy if the TV is behind you or within your vision. It's a chore to run back and forth, though. When the game is on a break, you can just Alt+Tab your monitor to what you're doing.

And yeah, you can always mute it when it has become a distraction.

Also, it's nice to see that other people are watching it with you.

I had a field day commenting on the Asian Games baseball games. I am a fan of baseball, and as much as I look forward to the Los Angeles Dodgers whooping the asses of their eventual World Series opponent, teaching, and at the same time learning, baseball as I read the live comments is satisfying.

Well, that is until the trolls come in.

The Alex Eala match against the Chinese tennis player, Wang Xiyu, has got to be one of my worst experiences checking out the action in a YouTube livestream. The fans were hella toxic, and I endured it for an hour before closing the damn thing and eventually muting the action as we saw her fall after an explosive 5-0 start.

I feel like Alex Eala had to win a no-win situation. Look, I get that she's the hottest thing in Philippine tennis at the moment. Hell, drawing those crowds, I think she's one of the more popular tennis personalities in the world.

But as I mentioned in my previous blog about her, before we place her on a pedestal, she needs to normalize her tournament placings.

The problem with Eala is that she's young, she's beautiful, she carved out a niche, and the Pinoy Pride outcry is making her possibly one of the cringiest tennis players in recent memory.

And the thing about this is... it's not her fault.

Or maybe it's her fault, because 2026 has been a solid year for her.

Eala has beaten the world's top women despite her weaknesses, and all of a sudden, she made Filipinos who had never held a tennis racket for most of their lives into geniuses.

Before she lost her match, let's break down what was happening before she arrived.

Eala was supposed to play in the Beijing Open when she said that she wanted to represent the Philippines in the 2026 Asian Games. Our tennis federation also wanted her, but the problem is that the WTA would impose sanctions if she missed a tournament in which she was invited. The Beijing Open is a WTA1000 event, which is basically one of the most important tournaments to play in. Moreover, she might get a $10,000 fine.

So our officials pulled strings to make this work, with Eala hell-bent on participating. But then, leading to her Asian Games stint, she lost to 165th-ranked Tatiana Prozorova in the round of 16 of the Singapore Open. And then, we see her mingling with the celebrities and fashion royalty at New York Fashion Week.

Look, Eala is a worldwide brand now. Yes, she can lose to an up-and-comer from time to time, but she also has to grace covers, do autograph signings, and go to events as well.

I hate to say this, but she's basically Anna Kournikova now.

I mean, for now.

Yes, we all saw how popular Kournikova became in the early 2000s. And man, I would have refreshed and refreshed the "Escape" music video when YouTube was around back then. But the thing is, if she can't win the big tournaments yet, she might as well do other things to advance her status.

Anyway, when Eala came to Nagoya, it felt to me like she was the reverse version of the Gilas Pilipinas basketball team. If Gilas Pilipinas wasted time, effort, and resources to field a team that could have had more seasoning, Eala came in, all set and ready, but she didn't know what she was getting herself into as she was hastily placed in the spotlight with all the pressure.

Again, she is coming into the tournament with the threat of sliding down in the WTA rankings and a hefty fine.

And, did I say hastily placed?

Yes, I did, and the optics looked bad!

Yes, Eala got a bye in the first round, but she also played four games in three days. Had she and Shaira Rivera won their doubles match, she would have played another match after her loss to Wang.

Now, I am not saying that we shouldn't use her insane number of matches as a scapegoat, but after the first set of her match, in which she visibly struggled, she looked gassed out and had to exert a lot of effort to win the match because the rest of the country saw her as the saving grace.

And aside from that, she was playing a Chinese player. If you look at all the games we had in the Asian Games, China dealt us either embarrassing defeats or, if we won, very satisfying victories. There is no question that we saw them as the team to beat, even if they clearly have the better overall sports program.

And on a side note, you know how big the discrepancy is between Eala and Rivera when one is wearing sponsored attire, and the other is wearing what looks to be a glorified P.E. uniform. And yeah, while that could have been Shaira Rivera's preferred attire, we have a ton of creative designers out there that could at least spruce up their uniforms.

While we have the likes of Carlos Yulo and EJ Obiena, we have to normalize our wins against them before we can call our rivalry against China on equal footing.

And again, man, the commenting trolls suck. I don't know if it's crab mentality or reverse hype, but reading the comments really pissed me off.

Again, Eala's main fault here is that she had a good 2026. I can see the country placing Manny Pacquiao as a sports pillar because he had the same path of success as Eala, but the difference between Pacquiao and Eala is that Manny was acknowledged as one of the best when he was placed against Margarito, Hatton, Cotto, De La Hoya, Morales, Barrera, Marquez, and Mosley, while Eala is still looking for her first WTA1000 title.

And this is why I dread the notion of her playing in front of the home crowd in 2027. The tennis community might love the fact that she's selling out the venues, but I can also see her getting flak from the other nationalities. Filipinos can't tone down their "Pinoy Pride."

Again, it's nice to see a Pinoy athlete getting the admiration of a country, but again, what she needs to concentrate on is to win a major WTA event, and the last thing she needs to do is to block out the noise caused by either her unruly fans or her toxic detractors.

World Mental Health Day is on October 10, and I guess what's best for her is just to reset, relax, and recharge from all the shit around her.

And unlike Anna Kournikova, Eala is still an active competitor and has already won a WTA500 event. I mean, the future is still bright for her, so all her detractors need to calm the fuck down and let her work her magic!