Before Alex, there was LaO

Francesca LaO was once the highest-ranked Philippine tennis player in the WTA at No. 386 and that was when she was 18 in 1994. The year before, she teamed with Eva Olivarez to bag gold in women’s doubles at the SEA Games in Singapore. LaO played in 19 Federation Cup ties with eight singles and nine doubles wins while competing in 11 junior Grand Slams.

After graduating third in her class at DLS Zobel high, LaO went to the University of California at Berkeley where she took All-America honors and graduated with a business degree as the female athlete with the highest GPA. LaO then earned her MBA from Wharton in 2010. She now lives in San Francisco and has carved out a successful career in business intelligence, data analytics, product management, marketing and creating start-ups. LaO’s also playing on the ITF Master’s tennis tour and USTA senior-level tournaments. With Team USA, she won gold at the 45-and-over World Championships in Tokyo in 2024. Next month, LaO will see action at the ITF Masters 50-and-over World Championships in Rome. Aside from tennis, she plays padel and is ranked in the 18-and-over divisions. In her workout routine, LaO does functional lifting for racket sports at least once or twice a week, cardio at least once a week and plays padel or tennis five times a week with mobility and stretching exercises before and after each session.

LaO remembers that she was a win away from making it to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics at 16 but Chinese-Taipei’s Wang Shi Ting got in the way at the Osaka qualifiers. Throughout her career, she battled the likes of Ai Sugiyama, Tamarine Tanasugarn, Sania Mirza and Corina Morariu in singles and Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova in doubles. While at Berkeley, she has fond memories playing doubles with Rod Laver against Roy Emerson, John Lloyd against Mal Washington, Morariu against Monica Seles and Mats Wilander against Luke Jensen at the annual Alta Bates Tennis Classic featuring celebrity exhibitions.

LaO says playing for the Philippines at the SEA Games was a cherished experience. “When Eva and I won gold in 1993, that was incredibly special,” she notes. “We were not really expected to win but we beat all the top-seeded teams. I still remember crying when we were on the podium and they played the National Anthem. The 1991 SEA Games in Manila were also amazing. We got the team silver and I played No. 2 singles even though I was only 15.”

In Tuesday’s column, LaO shares her insights on Alex Eala, the difficulties she encountered playing the tennis circuit as a student and a pathway for aspiring Filipino players to make an impact on the international tour.