Similar posts on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are circulating claiming that international sports brand Wilson offered a $45-million endorsement deal to rising Filipina tennis player Alexandra Eala which she has accepted. This is fake.
One of the earliest posts, published on Sept. 3 by an FB fan page, carried the following caption:
“Alexandra Eala has shocked the world and the Philippine media by accepting Wilson’s $45 million endorsement offer, a brand that dominates the tennis racket market: ‘Thank you for trusting me, but I will take that money and use it to do something that truly helps others, because there are many people who need it more than I do, and I want the Philippines to continue growing stronger.’ At the same time, she announced that she would use the money for something special..”
The post included a link in the comments section, which opens to another website where an entire article, dated Sept. 4, appears.
The post is a hoax. There is no official statement from Wilson Sporting Goods or Eala about such a deal. There are no news reports about it either; only similar posts on social media.
The quote attributed to the 20-year-old tennis player in the caption is false. It was taken from another erroneous endorsement deal with a golf player, that also linked an article to the same website that featured the supposed Wilson-Eala deal.
Presently, Eala’s sponsors include sports brands Nike and Babolat, as well as Filipino companies of the Ayala Group – Bank of the Philippine Islands and Globe Telecoms – all of which she follows on social media. There are no reports that she endorses any brand.
Additionally, the photo at the bottom right is the LinkedIn profile of Joe Dudy, former president and CEO of Wilson, who resigned on Aug. 31, 2025, three days before the post was surfaced.
Created on March 16, 2025, the FB fan page Tennis Plus posted the report which garnered more than 103,000 likes, 6,700 comments and 3,100 shares as of writing.
Editor’s note: This fact check was produced with the help of a journalism student of the University of Santo Tomas as part of their internship at VERA Files.
