Rising tennis stars feel at home at the Australian Open, a tournament of tennis diasporas

MELBOURNE, Australia — Even in defeat, Alex Eala’s fans took over the Australian Open.

Monday afternoon in Melbourne, lines snaked around Court 6 and food courts turned into fan zones, with thousands of people lining up to get a glimpse of the 20-year-old, who has become a sporting avatar for the Philippines since her run to the Miami Open semifinals last year, in which she beat three Grand Slam champions.

They roared her through a 6-0 first set against Alycia Parks of the United States, and cheered her off after the American came back to win in three sets.

A day later, it was Janice Tjen of Indonesia’s chance for a star turn, at the closest thing she and Eala have to a home Grand Slam.

“I’m having that feeling,” Tjen said with a warm grin Tuesday afternoon after beating No. 22 seed Leylah Fernandez in straight sets.

Indonesia lies just 90 miles across the Timor Sea from Australia’s northern coast. Fernandez is the daughter of a Colombian father and a Filipino mother and grew up in Canada. Needless to say, there was plenty of red and white throughout the 3,000 seats of ANZ Arena, which rocked with chants of “Oh Canada” and cascading moments of “Let’s go Leylah!” and “Let’s Go Janice.”

At times, the match felt more like a rowdy soccer duel between two small clubs in a tight, tense ground.

Eala and Tjen’s cacophonous support is shared by many other players in the draw, an illustration of how diaspora communities from countries that don’t get many opportunities to cheer on one of their own on a tennis court show up at the sport’s biggest events. Tennis has long wanted, and needed, stars from all parts of the world, but has been cautious of investing enough to grow the sport.

Now, the protagonists have arrived, and tournaments around the world might need some bigger buildings, especially in Melbourne and New York. Eala and Tjen’s fans packed stands for their matches at last year’s U.S. Open.

Then again, given the south-east Asian diasporas that make New York City home, and all their compatriots who packed the stands for their matches at the U.S. Open in New York last summer, they may have a couple of Grand Slams a year with that special feeling.

“Getting the chance, from Indonesia, it’s something special,” Tjen, who played college tennis at Pepperdine in California, said.

“It feels a little bit like home. Just knowing that a lot of Indonesians came up, came out today and supported me means a lot.”

Tjen said she found out around midday Monday that she and Fernandez would play on one of Melbourne Park’s six stadium courts, a move that allowed organizers to avoid the chaos of that day, when Eala’s fans might have filled Rod Laver Arena.

“It’s so special,” Eala said two weeks ago during an on-court interview in Auckland, where the Filipino diaspora turned out for her in force.

“If there’s one thing I learned in 2025, it’s that home is the people and not the place.”

This is especially true for tennis stars from the Philippines, Indonesia, and other nations that have countless possible supporters, but few, or no, tournaments at home. Eala’s defeat was at least good news for her fans in one sense — it guaranteed her participation in the new WTA Tour 125 tournament in Manila, which would have been in doubt had she made the second week.

Smaller tennis nations, which do not receive the investment or carry the institutional weight of the Grand Slam countries and other powers with multiple major winners, are ready to throw their support behind their players whenever they arrive on the biggest stages.

Wednesday was Zeynep Sönmez’s turn in the spotlight, as fans of Turkish descent swarmed Court 7. Turkish players have made the tour before, but Sönmez is breaking new ground. She also won three matches in qualifying to reach the main draw, allowing word to spread in Melbourne’s Turkish community that a run might be in the offing. They got rowdy in a hurry, as Sönmez beat Anna Bondár of Hungary in straight sets.

“I felt like I was at home,” she said. “I was feeling the energy. It was unreal.”

The Australian Open’s place in Melbourne’s cultural fabric has long made it a destination for communities that make the city home.

The Greeks have packed the place over the years for Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari. Serbian fans have made Rod Laver Arena feel like a home game for Crvena Zvezda whenever Novak Djokovic is on a roll. With 10 singles titles and 101 wins here, that’s a lot of rolling.

Last year, the tournament turned yellow, blue and green for the first time in two decades, when teenage talent João Fonseca arrived at this debut Grand Slam main draw and blitzed No. 9 seed Andrey Rublev in the opening round on Rod Laver Arena. By the time Fonseca’s second-round match rolled around, on the smaller 1573 Arena, the lines were about as long as those for Eala, with fans decked out in the iconic yellow Brazilian soccer kit.

Fonseca returned to the same arena Tuesday, and queues to get into the general seating of the 3,000-seat stadium snaked around the building once again. Fonseca faced Eliot Spizzirri, who eliminated the Brazilian in four sets. The 19-year-old fought a losing battle against Spizzirri’s steady play and his own balky back, which has been bothering him for weeks.

“I needed more time to prepare physically,” Fonseca said during his news conference. “I wasn’t 100 percent playing, but it gives me maturity to keep going, to understand my body and my limits.”

There is no shortage of upshots from the past few days. The star power of these players, combined with the growing popularity of the biggest tennis tournaments and their collective bid to outdo each other, have helped the Australian Open set attendance records.

The tournament is averaging more than 100,000 spectators per day, after a record-setting, pre-tournament week that drew in more than 200,000 fans. They were in overflow mode even for Eala’s practices, which threw her a bit.

“It’s a learning process,” Eala said — for her and for the fans and organizers too. A lot of Eala’s supporters were attending their first professional tennis match, and they cheered for every point no matter how it came. In the opening game, Parks missed two overheads to get broken, after having saved two break points. The roars on the second, which she dumped into the net, were so loud that they could have intoned a title win for the Filipino rising star.

Eala, Fonseca, and increasingly Sönmez present a tricky situation for the established tennis order. They have a ton of upside and potential, but their fandoms outstrip their rankings. Eala is the world No. 49; Parks the world No. 99. Fonseca was seeded, but Spizzirri is the world No. 85. Sönmez and Bondar’s combined ranking is 186.

These matchups don’t merit a stadium court in the opening round of a major by those metrics. But by fan interest, and by the potential for tennis to extend its reach, they do. For the fans who want to see those matchups, the quandary usually results in a lot of queuing.

Bernard Mananes, who timed a visit from the Philippines to see his son with the start of the tournament, said during an interview Monday that his wife, Lolita, had to wait for four hours to get a seat on Court 6. He wasn’t so lucky, and watched from the neighboring food court.

“She’s young but she’s trying her best,” he said of Eala.

A few feet from Mananes was Marlon Molina, a Filipino from London who saw Eala play at Wimbledon last year. He snapped a selfie with Eala near Henman Hill and had flown 10,000 miles to catch her at the year’s first Grand Slam.

Suzanne Limpin and her husband, Michael, brought their two children from Queensland. Limpin wasn’t a tennis fan until two years ago, when she started seeing highlights of Eala on a Filipino news channel she can watch in Australia. Now she and her husband can’t take their eyes off her.

“He watches her matches in the middle of the night,” she said, nodding toward her husband.

Prue Ryan, a spokesperson for Tennis Australia, said that the excitement around Eala was “fantastic for the sport and an exciting sign for the future of tennis in the region.

“Scheduling decisions should never be viewed in isolation, there are always so many variables to consider. After weighing all factors, including the significant popularity of a range of players, Court 6 was the best option for capacity and accessibility.”

Eala, Tjen and other young players like them have to make their own tradeoffs. Most players who have just broken into the top 100 don’t play regularly in front of such fervent crowds.

She’s learning to find that balance of tuning out the noise and drawing energy from it.

“When you’re in the zone and you’re competing, the competitive urge just takes over,” Eala said during an interview before the tournament. “There’s a lot of people watching, but you’re doing what you do, you’re doing what you know how to do.

“That’s why you have to be confident in yourself. It doesn’t help when you’re thinking, ‘Oh, everyone’s watching it.’”

For Tjen, the attention and the rowdy stadium against Fernandez had an air of familiarity, thanks to her time at Pepperdine and Oregon universities. There was plenty of noise at matches against big school rivals, such as Michigan, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

She learned then that her best strategy was to wear a pair of imaginary earmuffs and a set of blinders. Now, her opponents are the ones on the other side of the noise, and Tjen knows she is a part of something bigger than herself. Still, she can’t think about every match that way.

“It’s an honor to represent Indonesia here,” she said during an interview Tuesday after her win. “I just try to enjoy myself and if I enjoy it, I can bring the best version of myself.”

Sönmez said there were plenty of Turkish fans cheering for her at Wimbledon last year, but it didn’t compare to Wednesday in Melbourne Park, where the etiquette can be a little looser than at the All England Club. Like a lot of the people buying tickets for the Australian Open, she couldn’t be happier to see the new blood on the big stages.

“There are some countries that are very good at tennis — they’re, like, tennis countries,” she said. “We are not one of them. That is a good thing, because then there are more players, more surprises.”

For her, Saturday will bring a fourth-round tie against Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan — and a lot more noise. Sönmez is excited for it, whether she’s on court, or watching like one of the fans.

“I saw Alex was playing few days ago, and the crowd was crazy,” she said. “I really enjoy watching those matches, too.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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