MANILA, Philippines – Unified Tennis Philippines national junior team players Alexandra Eala and Michael Francis Eala both reached the finals of the International Tennis Federation (ITF)-AGS Junior Tennis Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Eala siblings beat higher-ranked players in their road to the finals.

However, they dropped their championship matches, with Alex losing to top seed Priska Madelyn Nugroho from Indonesia, 2-6, 2-4, 2-6, while Miko yielded to top seed Ryoma Matsushita of Japan, 3-6, 7-6, 5-7.

The 13-year-old Alex defeated older opponents such as Indonesian Nur Hadiati Joleta Budiman, and Janice Tjen as well as AI Yamaguchi from Japan and Aesha Patel from the United States.

Meanwhile, Miko bested Kenneth Legacy, Muhammad Muzaqir, Karan Srivastava and Odeda Arazza from Indonesia, as well as Sohma Nakagomi from Japan. He also reached the semi-finals of the doubles competition.

"We congratulate Miko and Alex for proving that the Philippine team is a force to reckon with. We also commend the rest of the UTP national team in this tourney for exhibiting great sportsmanship and passion for the sport. Rest assured that I and their UTP family will continue to support them," said Jean Henri Lhuillier, Unified Tennis Philippines president.

Other members of the team were Bea Acena, Manuel Balce III, Melanie Dizon and Macie Carlos.

"Part of UTP's mission is to continuously expose emerging Filipino junior tennis players to global competitions, thus giving them the opportunity to hone their skills on and off the court against some of the world's best junior players," said Lhuillier.

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