Two Southeast Asian tennis pride faces Russian players at Madrid Open 2026

It will be challenging matches for the two current top tennis stars of Southeast Asia right from their debut at the prestigious Mutua Madrid Open 2026.

The two current top tennis players of Southeast Asia: Alexandra Eala and Janice Tjen will have their debut match Mutua Madrid Open 2026 full of challenges on the evening of April 22 according to Vietnam time.

Accordingly, Alex Eala will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova — a player who once ranked world No. 11 right in the first match at Caja Magica. Despite being older and currently fallen out of the top 100, "Nastia" remains a player of great class and has proven her ability on clay courts.

This star born in Samara once reached the semifinals of Madrid Open five years ago — defeating Jennifer Brady, Karolina Pliskova and only losing to Aryna Sabalenka. She also won the women's doubles title here with Lucie Safarova. Additionally, Pavlyuchenkova was also runner-up at Roland Garros 2021 (lost to Barbora Krejcikova in the final), confirming her excellence on clay courts.

For Eala, clay is not the preferred court surface for the reigning SEA Games champion, with extremely modest results. The biggest advantage of the Philippine player against her Russian opponent is youth.

Meanwhile, Janice Tjen also faces another player from the "Land of the White Birch" — Alina Charaeva. In theory, Tjen has a more "comfortable" debut match, but in reality Charaeva is also in good form recently, defeating strong opponents like Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Nikola Bartunkova in qualifying.

Similar to Eala, Tjen does not have convincing results on clay courts. This promises to be a tough match for the Indonesian star.

Another name from Southeast Asian tennis also participating in Madrid Open this year is Aldila Sutjiadi. The Indonesian doubles specialist will partner with compatriot Tjen in women's doubles, facing the pair Marta Kostyuk/Clara Tauson in their debut match.

Eala also competes in this non-specialty event, partnering with her close friend on Tour — Zeynep Sonmez. This pair with a huge fan base will face a major challenge named Chan Hao-ching/Fanny Stollar — two doubles specialists, among whom "Angel Chan" has reached four Grand Slam finals.