MANILA, Philippines – Since Filipino professional tennis player Alex Eala shot to global fame following her historic entry into the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Top 100 in early 2025, the spotlight on her has grown. This drew both genuine fan admiration and a surge of online content seeking to capitalize on her name.

While Eala’s wins have been remarkable, several false claims about her have cropped up on social media. On September 8, a Facebook page called Tennis Plus falsely claimed that Rappler CEO Maria Ressa had driven the tennis star to tears by criticizing her for “forgetting her roots.”

The Nerve and Rappler spotted at least five tennis-themed Facebook pages and one Facebook group dedicated to supporting Eala that have posted clickbait, sensational, and outright falsehoods designed to garner engagement through viral, unsubstantiated claims. These were Tennis Together, TopSpin Central, Tennis Triumph, Tennis Today, and Alex Eala Lover’s Facebook Group.

Other tennis players frequently mentioned by these pages were Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz, Emma Raducanu, Roger Federer, Jannik Sinner, and Naomi Osaka.

These Facebook entities have employed the same techniques to capitalize on Eala’s fame: build an audience base of tennis fans, post viral and sensational content, and funnel traffic to external sites for profit.

These websites, which typically display at least 20 ads per page, can earn roughly from $4.27 up to $7.63 (P250.38 to P447.40) for every 1,000 times an ad is shown. Available data from SimilarWeb showed that these websites get monthly visitors ranging from 715 to 265,516. At these levels, each website could earn roughly up to $109 (P6,400) per month for the smallest sites, and up to around $40,517 (P2.4 million) monthly for the largest ones. However, actual earnings may still vary depending on ad fill rate, viewer location, or fees.

Prominent personalities, conservative views, and AI use

Ressa was not the only target of disinformation by these pages. At the height of the news about the killing of US right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk, they also posted fabricated stories about how Eala had supposedly expressed her “deep grief” and urged “a moment of silence” in memory of Kirk. This has been debunked.

Eala herself has been a target of narratives that forward other conservative views, such as her supposed public refusal to participate in WTA’s “Pride Night.” Aside from these tennis-themed pages, there have been no public records or statements to support this claim.

Rappler has since fact-checked multiple viral claims about Eala posted by these pages. These include claims of her receiving a “Special Presidential Award” from President Marcos, donating millions to a children’s charity or homeless senior citizens, and signing a $45-million endorsement deal with American sports equipment manufacturer Wilson Sporting Goods.

To create these false claims with speed, these pages have accompanied their claims with images generated using AI.

Obvious indicators of AI use included elements that showed misspellings on purported bank checks and figures with distorted fingers.

Laying the groundwork through engagement farming

All of the pages were found to have launched separate sets of ads on Facebook in March, July, and August 2025 — likely to build their follower base before they post more content to gather more engagement.

Two of the pages, Tennis Plus and Tennis Today, launched ads back in March 2025. They both launched five ads each, all of which were similar in design: all of them contained a collage of tennis players and text that said “IF YOU LOVE TENNIS PRESS HERE.”

Both of these pages listed the United States as the location of its beneficiaries and payers: Teepify LLC and Expeditee LLC. The listed website for Teepify was unavailable as of October 2025, but a snapshot from archive.org showed that it was an online store for custom t-shirts. The website for Expeditee LLC was still up as of writing, and it similarly showed an online shop for t-shirts.

In July, Teepify LLC launched another set of ads, serving as both the beneficiary and payer for another page, Tennis Triumph. These ads had a different design from the first two batches of ads from Tennis Plus and Tennis Today, but they similarly directed viewers toward the Like Page button. The beneficiary and payer for this page also listed “Fancy Media” together with Teepify.

A month later, two more pages (Tennis Together and TopSpin Central) launched a similar-looking set of ads to that of Tennis Triumph’s. The similarities were obvious: while no image was reused, each of the ads followed the same template of an image of a known tennis athlete at the center, accompanied by captions with the same text, font style, and colors.

The beneficiary and payer of the ads from Tennis Together and TopSpin Central were listed as Infinite Playlist. Unlike Teepify and Expeditee, there was no website or any other information that could directly identify Infinite Playlist, making it unclear who was responsible for sponsoring them.

A closer look at these five pages also showed that four out of five pages have at least one manager from Vietnam, while one (Tennis Triumph) is managed by a user located in the Philippines. This suggests that while the sponsors are from the United States, the operation of the pages is largely coordinated from Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam.

All five pages were created within the past two years. Two of the pages, Tennis Together and TopSpin Central, were originally created in 2023 but changed their names to adopt a more sports-related feel in July 2025 — a month before their respective set of ads were launched and paid for by Infinite Playlist.

Meanwhile, Tennis Triumph, the page managed by an admin based in the Philippines, was created in 2024 but likewise changed its name in July 2025, which was the same month it launched its ads.

The other two pages were created in December 2024 and March 2025. The Facebook group, meanwhile, was created in 2023 and had moderators from Africa.

From promotion, to persuasion, to profits

Once the pages were primed with the appropriate branding and a substantial follower base, they ramped up content production with sensational and often fake material that grabs the attention of their audiences, while including links to external dubious websites for the “full story.”

The nature of their content allowed them to reach far beyond their original audience, further growing their reach organically and making paid ads on social media unnecessary anymore.

Some of the external websites used by these pages were:

• Tennis Together - Links to https://www.fcplaytowin.blog, which redirects to https://green.topnewsource.com/ 
• Tennis Plus - Links to https://golfnewsus.com/, which redirects to https://luxury.carmagazine.tv/
• TopSpin Central and Tennis Triumph - Links to https://sport247.topnewsource.com/
• Tennis Today - Links to https://freshnewsbuzz.com, which redirects to https://lux.feji.io/; and https://newspulseus.com/, which redirects to https://luxs.carmagazine.tv/
• Alex Eala Lover’s Facebook Group - Links to https://oluboritv.site/

These websites were all peppered with advertisements, typically displaying at least 20 ads on a single page. They also mimic online news sites, except they don’t contain the elements of a credible news organization, such as editorial boards, transparency pages, or disclosure statements.

Behind the scenes, these websites also collect user data through cookies and tracking pixels, which can enable the operators to retarget visiting users later on with ads or new campaigns. While some of these can be disabled, visitors can either not know how to turn them off or simply consent without realizing what they’re agreeing to.

The 20-year-old Eala knows that attention from all directions comes part of her rise in the sport. Not all will be good, and within her control, so she opts to focus on her game and the positives.

"I always say, so much has changed but nothing’s changed at all. My day-to-day, I’m still working the same, I’m working just as hard. The work ethic’s always been there," said Eala, who notched a new career-high ranking in October 2025, rising to a historic No. 54, the highest for a Filipina tennis player.  

"But then of course, a lot of external factors have changed. How people see me, or you know, that people are even seeing me at all. A lot of new exposure but I think, you know, so much more positive," the 5-foot-9 star said in a WTA interview.    

In a media event during her recent Manila vacation, Eala shared how she doesn't stress about hate comments, fake news, and other vile content online.

“I don’t really pay attention to a lot of…negative comments, as you would say," Eala noted.

Many of the disinformation tactics identified above reflect patterns seen in information operation campaigns previously observed by Rappler and The Nerve.

For one, renaming accounts or reviving old or dormant ones is a common tactic in spreading political disinformation propaganda. Operators of information operations have rebranded existing pages to leverage their prior engagement and followers while masking the true origins or intent of their campaigns.

What these tennis pages illustrate, however, is that such tactics are not limited to political or ideological manipulation. They are also utilized for commercial gain. – with reports from Delfin Dioquino/Rappler.com

$1 = P58.64

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This story was originally published on Rappler on October 26, 2025.

Decoded is a Rappler series that tackles Big Tech not just as a system of abstract infrastructure or policy levers, but as something that directly shapes human experiences. It is produced by The Nerve, a data forensics company that enables changemakers to navigate real-world trends and issues through narrative and network investigations. Taking the best of human and machine, we enable partners to unlock powerful insights that shape informed decisions. Composed of a team of data scientists, strategists, award-winning storytellers, and designers, the company is on a mission to deliver data with real-world impact.