Heavy rain stopped play on Sunday evening in Washington with Jessica Pegula leading a set and 2-1 in the second. When Alex Eala walked back onto the court on Monday, she was a set down, two games behind, and facing the world No. 3. She won seven of the next eight games and took home the title.
The 2026 Mubadala Citi DC Open now belongs to Eala, the 21-year-old from the Philippines, who beat Pegula 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 to become the first Filipino to win a WTA Tour singles title. She also became the first Southeast Asian player to win at the WTA 500 level or above. She entered the tournament ranked World No. 28. She leaves ranked World No. 20, a career-high.
The path to the final was not straightforward. Eala beat Leylah Fernandez, the defending champion from 2025, in the second round. In the quarter-finals she got past Elina Svitolina. Then came the semi-final against Naomi Osaka, which Eala won 6-4, 6-2 in just 77 minutes: a result that announced her as a genuine threat to win the whole thing.
Pegula, seeded first at this WTA 500 event and ranked third in the world, was solid in the opening set. But the rain break on Sunday changed the shape of the match. Eala returned on Monday with more intention and better placement. She broke Pegula twice in the second set to level it, then won all six games of the third without allowing Pegula to hold serve once. The final set, a 6-0 scoreline against one of the most reliable players in the game, tells the story of who controlled this match from the Monday resumption onward. Eala completed the match in one hour and 45 minutes after play resumed.
Pegula had reached four WTA Tour finals in 2026 before this one. She remains World No. 3 and will not have been derailed by a single defeat. Her next test comes almost immediately: the National Bank Open in Toronto, where she arrives as a top seed at the WTA 1000 event beginning this week.
For Eala, the US Open series looks very different now. She travels to Toronto ranked 20th in the world, on the back of her best result by some distance. How she handles the step up in format and field at a WTA 1000 will tell us a great deal about what she is capable of at Flushing Meadows in late August.
Taylor Fritz claimed the men’s singles title at the same tournament, beating Rafael Jódar 7-6(7-2), 6-4 to win his 11th ATP title on Sunday.
For now, the headline belongs to Eala. History was made in Washington. The Philippines has its first WTA champion.
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