Multiple posts on Facebook are circulating a claim that Filipina tennis star Alexandra Eala has received a multi-billion dollar offer from Abu Dhabi billionaire Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. This is fake.
The supposed 10-year contract consists of a $1 billion down payment and $600 million annually in exchange for staying in the United Arab Emirates capital to serve as “queen” of the new Abu Dhabi Diamond Tennis Championship.
An FB page posted on Feb. 3 features a side-by-side photo of the 20-year-old tennis player and the Abu Dhabi billionaire. Other FB pages reposted it the following day. One of the posts carried a lengthy caption that started with:
“SHOCKING NEWS IN THE WORLD OF TENNIS: Abu Dhabi billionaire Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan kneels and begs Alexandra Eala to stay in Abu Dhabi to become the ‘queen’ of the new Abu Dhabi tennis tournament, offering the BIGGEST CONTRACT IN SPORTS HISTORY: $1 BILLION DOWN PAYMENT + $600 MILLION/YEAR for 10 YEARS!”
The viral graphic is edited. The photo used is a composite of Eala and the billionaire. The comment section uses sensationalist ‘clickbait’ tropes to drive traffic to ad-heavy websites.
The contract value of the fake posts is unheard of in the current sports landscape. The alleged deal — totaling $7 billion over 10 years — is ten times larger than the $700 million contract of baseball star Juan Soto of Dominican Republic, the actual record-holder for the most expensive contract in sports history.
Eala is currently in the UAE competing in the WTA 500 Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open, where she recently made headlines for the crowd she attracts, her dramatic comeback victory against Belarusian player Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the second round and her continued run with doubles partner, Indonesian Janice Tjen.
There is no record of her meeting Sheikh Mansour for business negotiations. Official state media reports show that the Sheikh was recently attending horse racing and equestrian events, not tennis tournaments.
Eala acknowledged and has addressed different kinds of misinformation about her and expressed concern that these get a lot of engagements online.
As of February 2026, Alex Eala’s career prize money is approximately $1.49 million. She is currently ranked 45 in WTA singles, according to her official WTA profile and is the first Filipino to make a mark in the international tennis stage.
As of writing, the fake post published by FB pages Tennis Dispatch (created May 2025), Tennis Network (created March 2025), and TPG (created August 2021) has collectively garnered 11,367 reactions, 1,464 comments, and 449 shares.
