FILIPINO tennis ace Alexandra 'Alex' Eala and fellow Southeast Asian Janice Tjen of Indonesia face the Canadian-French duo of Leylah Fernandez and Kristina Mladenovic at the Abu Dhabi Open doubles in the United Arab Emirates Tuesday.
Time of the round of 16 match is yet to be determined as of writing.
Ranked 135th in doubles, Eala last saw action in the pair game at the just concluded Australian Open.
Eala and Brazilian partner Ingrid Martins fell to the Japanese-Polish tandem of Shuko Aoyama and Magda Linette, 6-7 (3), 6-2, 3-6, in the opener.
Tjen and Polish Katarzyna Piter suffered the same fate, yielding to the Australian duo of Daria Kasatkina and Arina Rodionova, 6-1, 4-6, 4-6.
World No. 47 Tjen is facing world No. 25 Fernandez for the second time in two weeks, having stunned the 23-year-old Canadian at the Australian Open singles opener, 6-2, 7-6 (1).
The 23-year-old Tjen, who is ranked 67th in doubles, bowed out in the second round after falling to Czech Karolina Pliskova, 4-6, 4-6.
In the same tournament, Eala succumbed to American Alycia Parks, 6-0, 3-6, 2-6, in the opening round.
Eala and Tjen are expected to have a tough time against Fernandez and Mladenovic, who are ranked 68th and 55th in the doubles category, respectively.
Mladenovic is also a doubles specialist, being a former world No. 1 and having won 30 titles including six Grand Slams.
On the singles side, the 32-year-old is a former world No. 10 and is currently 1030th.
Eala was set to face Turkish Zeynep Sönmez in the singles round of 32 Monday night while Tjen was set to clash against Australian Maya Joint Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Eala climbed to a new career-high 45th at the official Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings Monday morning.
Eala made the leap from her previous high 49th.
"I’m working hard," the 20-year-old Eala said. "My team is working hard and we’re working hard to maintain the level that I’m at and working even harder to go deeper and higher into the rankings inch by inch."
Eala has a total of 1,163 points in the rankings, still led by Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka who has 10,990.
Polish Iga Swiatek (7,978), Kazakh and newly crowned Australian Open champ Elena Rybakina (7,610), American Amanda Anisimova (6,680), and another American Coco Gauff (6,423) round out the top five.
Eala faces world no. 79 Zeynep Sönmez of Turkey in the round of 32 in Abu Dhabi.
Eala lost to eventual champ Camila Osorio of Colombia, 4-6, 4-6, in the quarterfinals of the inaugural Philippine Women's Open last Thursday.