MELBOURNE, Australia — Even in defeat, Alex Ira’s fans took over the Australian Open.
Queues snaked around Court 6 in Melbourne on Monday afternoon, with the food court transformed into a fan zone as thousands queued to catch a glimpse of the 20-year-old. She has become a sports icon in the Philippines since she reached the semifinals of last year’s Miami Open and defeated three Grand Slam champions.
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They cheered her when she beat American Alycia Parks 6-0 in the first set and cheered her after the American won three straight sets.
A day later, Indonesia’s Janice Tjen got her star turn, the closest she and Ella have come to a home Grand Slam.
“I feel that way,” Tjen said with a warm smile after defeating 22nd seed Leila Fernandez in straight sets on Tuesday afternoon.
Indonesia is only 90 miles off the northern coast of Australia, across the Timor Sea. The daughter of a Colombian father and a Filipino mother, Fernandez grew up in Canada. Needless to say, the 3,000 seats at ANZ Arena were filled with red and white, with chants of “Oh Canada” and moments of “Let’s go Leylah!” and “Let’s go, Janice.”
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At times, the game felt more like a raucous football showdown between two smaller clubs on a tight, tight field.
The ringing support for Ella and Tejan was echoed by many other players in the draw, illustrating how diaspora communities from countries that don’t have many opportunities to cheer for their country on a tennis court can show up at the sport’s biggest event. Tennis has long wanted and needed stars from around the world but has been wary of investing enough money to grow the sport.
Now that the protagonists have arrived, tournaments around the world may need some bigger buildings, especially in Melbourne and New York. Fans of Ella and Tejan packed the stands to watch them play at last year’s U.S. Open.
Then again, considering the Southeast Asian diaspora who call New York home, and all the compatriots who packed the stands to watch last summer’s U.S. Open in New York, they probably have a few Grand Slams each year and that special feeling.
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“To get this opportunity in Indonesia, it’s something special,” said Tjen, who played tennis at Pepperdine University in California.
“It feels a little like home. Just knowing that a lot of Indonesians came out to support me today means a lot.”
Tjen said she found out around noon on Monday that she and Fernandez would play in one of six stadiums at Melbourne Park, a move that allowed organizers to avoid chaos on the day when Ella fans would have packed Rod Laver Arena.
“This is so special,” Ella said in a court interview two weeks ago in Auckland, where Filipino expats came to her defence.
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“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 2025, it’s that home is people, not places.”
This is especially true for tennis stars from the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries, which have countless possible supporters but little to no competition at home. In one sense, Ella’s defeat is at least good news for her fans – it guarantees her entry into the new WTA Tour 125 tournament in Manila, where it will be doubtful if she makes it to the second week.
Smaller tennis nations don’t have the investment or institutional clout of Grand Slam nations and others with multiple Grand Slam titles, but they are ready to support their players whenever they take on the biggest stage.
Zeynep Sönmez was in the spotlight on Wednesday as fans of Turkish descent packed into Court No. 7. Turkish players have played on the tour before, but Somez is breaking new ground. She also won three qualifying matches to reach the main draw, spreading word among Melbourne’s Turkish community that the tournament was coming. They soon fell into a falling out when Sonmes beat Hungary’s Anna Bondar in straight sets.
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“I feel like I’m at home,” she said. “I felt the energy. It was unreal.”
The Australian Open’s place in Melbourne’s cultural fabric has long made it a destination for the community that calls the city home.
Over the years the Greeks have packed the place for Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari. Whenever Novak Djokovic performs well, Serbian fans make Rod Laver Arena feel like a Red Star home game. There are 10 singles titles and 101 wins here, which is a huge improvement.
Last year, when the tournament turned yellow, blue and green for the first time in two decades, teenage prodigy Joao Fonseca made his first Grand Slam main draw appearance and blitzed ninth seed Andrei Rublev in the first round at Rod Laver Arena. When Fonseca’s second-round match began, the line was as long as Ella’s in the smaller 1573 Arena, with fans wearing the iconic yellow Brazilian football jerseys.
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Fonseca returned to the same venue on Tuesday, with queues once again forming for regular seats in the 3,000-seat stadium. Fonseca faced Eliot Spizzri, who eliminated the Brazilian in four sets. The 19-year-old lost his battle with Spitzri’s solid play and his own stubborn back, which has plagued him for weeks.
“I need more time to prepare physically,” Fonseca told a news conference. “I wasn’t 100 percent in the game, but it allowed me to mature and move forward and understand my body and my limits.”
There has been no shortage of results over the past few days. The star power of these players, coupled with the growing popularity of major tennis events and their collective efforts to outperform each other, helped the Australian Open set attendance records.
The event averaged more than 100,000 viewers a day after a record-breaking pre-match week attracting more than 200,000 fans. Even during Ella’s practice, they were in overflow mode, which confused her a little.
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“It’s been a learning process,” Ella said — for her, the fans and organizers as well. Many of Ella’s supporters were watching their first professional tennis match and cheered every point, no matter the score. In the first set, Parks missed two break opportunities after saving two break points. On the second ball, she threw it into the net and roared so loudly that it could have been cheering for the Filipino rising star to win the title.
Ella, Fonseca and, increasingly, Somez create a tricky situation for the established tennis order. They have huge upside and potential, but their fan base exceeds their ranking. Ella is ranked 49th in the world; Parks is ranked 99th in the world. Fonseca is seeded, but Spizzri is ranked 85th in the world. The combined ranking of Sonmes and Bondar is 186th.
By these metrics, these games are not worthy of entering the stadium in the first round of a Grand Slam. But out of fan interest, and the potential for tennis to expand its reach, they did. This dilemma often results in massive queues for fans who want to attend these games.
Bernard Mananes, who traveled from the Philippines to visit his son at the start of the game, said in an interview on Monday that his wife Lolita had to wait four hours to get a seat on Court 6. He wasn’t so lucky and had to watch the game from a nearby food court.
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“She’s young, but she’s doing her best,” he said of Ella.
A few feet away from Mananes was Marlon Molina, a Filipino from London who watched Ella play at Wimbledon last year. He took a selfie with Eala near Henman Hill and flew 10,000 miles to catch her in the first major of the year.
Suzanne Limpin and her husband Michael brought their two children from Queensland. Linping didn’t become a tennis fan until two years ago, when she started seeing Ella’s highlights on a Philippine news channel available in Australia. Now neither she nor her husband can take their eyes off her.
“He watches her games in the middle of the night,” she said, nodding to her husband.
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Tennis Australia spokesperson Prue Ryan said the excitement around Ella “is fantastic for the sport and an exciting sign for the future of tennis in the region.
“Fixture decisions should never be viewed in isolation, there are always many variables to consider. After weighing all factors, including the popularity of a range of players, No. 6 is the best option in terms of capacity and accessibility.”
Eala, Tjen and other young players like them have to make their own trade-offs. Most players who just crack the top 100 don’t play in front of such an enthusiastic crowd very often.
She is learning to find the balance between cutting out the noise and drawing energy from it.
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“When you’re focused and competing, the competitive impulse takes over,” Ella said in an interview before the game. “There’s a lot of people watching, but you’re doing what you do, you’re doing what you know how to do.
“That’s why you have to have confidence in yourself. It doesn’t help when you think ‘Oh, everyone is watching it’.”
For Tjen, the attention on Fernandez and the loud stadium had a familiar atmosphere due to her experiences at Pepperdine and the University of Oregon. There’s a lot of noise in games against big school opponents like Michigan, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
She later learned that the best strategy was to wear an imaginary pair of earmuffs and an eye mask. Now, her opponent is on the other side of the noise, and Tjen knows she’s part of something bigger than herself. She can’t think about every game like that, though.
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“It’s an honor to be here representing Indonesia,” she said in an interview after Tuesday’s win. “I just try to enjoy myself and if I enjoy it, I can bring the best of myself.”
Sonmez said there were a lot of Turkish fans cheering for her at Wimbledon last year, but that compares with Wednesday’s match at Melbourne Park, where etiquette may be a little looser than at the All England Club. Like many who bought tickets to the Australian Open, she was excited to see new blood on the big stage.
“There are countries that are very good at tennis – they are tennis countries,” she said. “We’re not one of them. That’s a good thing because then there will be more players, more surprises.”
There will also be more noise for her on Saturday when she takes on Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva in the fourth round. Somez is excited about it, whether she’s on the court or watching the game as a fan.
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“I saw Alex playing a few days ago and the crowd was crazy,” she said. “I really enjoyed watching those games, too.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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