Tennis sensation Alex Eala couldn’t help but call her father after a man suddenly knelt in front of her with a ring.
The 21-year-old tennis player was surprised when content creator Tony Zhao, who also plays the sport, knelt in front of her and pulled out a lollipop ring.
The moment happened while Alex was inside a Nike store on Fifth Avenue in New York City for a fan event.
The Filipina was signing shirts and interacting with fans when Tony knelt in front of her and brought out the ring.
“Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad!” Alex said, gesturing toward her father, who was also in the vicinity.
She covered her eyes while smiling before gesturing toward Tony.
Mike Eala, meanwhile, looked at the content creator with his arms crossed arms as Alex held on to her father, still smiling.
“Proposing to Alex Eala be like,” Tony’s video read.
“Had to shoot my shot,” the content creator captioned his post.
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In an interview with ABS-CBN News, Tony revealed that he was invited to a Nike event where fans would have “15 seconds to interact with Alex.”
“And so, you know, I thought, what’s something that’s fun, funny, and something that could go viral?” he said.
“And I was just walking through streets of New York, and the idea just kind [of] came to my mind… I was like, ‘What’s like one thing that when she sees it, and she laughs?’ So a ring pop come into my mind. So we chose that ring pop,” Tony added.
He said that he did not expect Alex to react that way to his gimmick.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect, but yeah, that was a great, great, great reaction,” the content creator shared.
He also described Alex’s interaction with her father as a “wholesome” moment.
“That was very cute. I saw how Alex interacted with her dad, and it was very, like, wholesome moment, and her dad is, oh my God, cool, very cool,” Tony said.
Alex recently reached a career-high No. 18 in the WTA rankings, making her the highest-ranked Southeast Asian woman in WTA Singles history.
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