Two Hawaii freshmen are already on Alex Eala’s Asian Games sheet

On Monday in Nagoya, two University of Hawaiʻi freshmen won an Asian Games tennis match that still felt like a national-team story. Tennielle Madis and Stefi Aludo beat Indonesia’s Anjali Junarto and Meydiana Reinnamah 6-3, 7-6 (4) in women’s doubles, coming back from 3-5 in the second set and closing the tiebreak 7-4. Alex Eala, world No. 18 and the Philippines’ top seed in singles, was in the stands for the comeback.

Madis and Aludo are true freshmen on Jun Hernandez’s Rainbow Wahine roster, without a Big West dual-match line yet. They already have SEA Games bronze from Thailand last December, a Hawaii scholarship built on that doubles partnership, and an Asian Games assignment next to the player Madis calls her idol on and off the court. Philippine tennis finally has a WTA star. These two are what the next layer looks like before their American dual season even starts.

Sunday had been harder. Madis opened the women’s singles on center court at Higashiyama Park and lost 1-6, 0-6 to Japan’s Himeno Sakatsume, the No. 7 seed and world No. 119. Afterward she told Philippine Olympic Committee media she needed to train harder — not double time, ten times — and to build more muscle. She also said Hawaii training had helped prepare her and Aludo for Nagoya. Then she turned back to doubles with her partner.

Monday’s win was the bounce she wanted. Aludo talked about changing tactics when Indonesia started returning everything — lobbing, coming to net, hitting out. Madis said winning at this level felt different, and that Eala’s presence changed the energy in the box. Next up is Round of 16 against Chinese Taipei’s No. 5 seeds Hao-ching Chan and Fang-hsien Wu, a veteran pair with a much higher ceiling on paper.

They reached that stadium through college recruiting. At the SEA Games in Thailand, Madis and Aludo upset Thai favorites in the doubles quarterfinals before taking bronze in doubles and the team event. Philippine reporting in February said national-team coach Robert Angelo’s staff and Hawaii’s Hernandez were close enough that those medals opened the conversation. Aludo, then 17, said studying abroad had always been the plan. Madis is listed from Muntinlupa on the UH roster and is repeatedly described in Philippine coverage as a pride of M’lang, North Cotabato; Aludo’s Hawaii bio puts her in Trento, Agusan del Sur. Both joined the 2026-27 Rainbow Wahine as freshmen in the Big West.

Hernandez has already given UH three conference titles and three NCAA tournament berths across a long tenure — Big West banners in 2018 and 2023 among them. The quieter fact for Philippine tennis is a Division I roster willing to take a national doubles pair before their American dual-match résumés exist. Next to Eala’s tour calendar, college tennis can look like downtime. For Madis and Aludo it is the training block that got them to Nagoya fit enough to scrap out a Games win, then fly home to dual matches that will ask for the same composure — and for the same partnership that already took bronze in Thailand.

Eala’s week runs in parallel. She skipped the mandatory China Open to play these Games, beat Thailand’s Patcharin Cheapchandej 6-1, 6-0 indoors after rain, and moved into the quarterfinals against Joanna Garland. A deep singles run still carries Olympic conversation for Los Angeles 2028. Madis and Aludo are the other half of the federation’s bet: keep a star on the biggest Asian multi-sport stage, and bring the next doubles pairing that already knows how to win bronze at a SEA Games.

Philippine tennis has spent a year talking about more courts, more attention, and kids who suddenly see a path after Eala’s first WTA title. The Hawaii chapter is smaller and more specific. Two freshmen left home for Mānoa, kept the national jersey, and spent a Monday in Nagoya proving the dual calendar can work before their first fall dual match. Chan and Wu will be a heavier Round of 16. What already landed is simpler: an NCAA roster can feed a national team, and Madis and Aludo just put a result on that claim.