Alex Eala, acknowledged by many as the most popular tennis player on tour, put the terno under the global spotlight when she wore it at the 2026 Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid last April 21. The prestigious award-giving body that honors the top achievers in sports.
Leading the awardees this year were grandslam champions Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka.
It was a significant red carpet moment not only for Eala, but also for the Filipino national dress. The 20-year-old tennis ace, the first Filipina to land in the top 50 in the tennis open era, has drawn the praise of her countrymen for how she uses her fame and high social media engagement to promote her country, her culture and the Filipino people. Even the world’s leading tennis commentators and podcasters—like American grandslam champion Andy Roddick—acknowledge her sizeable global following and virality. And she uses her digital heft to promote the Philippines and the Filipino by speaking in Filipino or Tagalog after the match and unfurling the Filipino flag whenever she could. Her matches are easily among the biggest crowd-drawers in the tour, given the huge Filipino population abroad.
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This time, she put the terno on the global stage. It was designed by her paternal uncle, Rhett Eala, a foremost Filipino designer who’s set trends on the runway, in RTW and custom-made fashion, even in the digital fashion graphic (the iconic design of the Filipino flag on T-shirts, that became the vogue in the early 2000s, is his).
Rhett Eala designed for his niece a floor-length blush beige dress—a strapless gown in chiffon. Over this, Alex wore a bolero with the signature terno butterfly sleeves, which she would take off and put on for the red-carpet photo moments. Her 1.75m height turned her into a perfect fashion mannequin who made the fluidity of the chiffon column dress even more striking and chic.
Rhett Eala’s bolero terno is a fine example of the Filipino dress made contemporary, chic and young. Cool look for the cool ambassador of the sport.
Rhett Eala told TheDiarist.ph that he finished work on the gown in only a week—truly a labor of art and love by an uncle for a most famous niece.
