Alexandra Eala of the Philippines celebrates winning the second round women’s singles match against Maya Joint of Australia at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Thursday, July 2, 2026.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

The journey continues for Alex Eala—and it will go through a familiar foe on an unfamiliar surface hosting their duel.

The 21-year-old Filipino star heads into Wimbledon’s third round, where she will meet defending champion Iga Swiatek, hoping to add more days to what has already been a historic stretch for Eala at All-England Club.

The popular left-hander surrendered just two games in the final two sets and took down Maya Joint, 3-6, 6-2, 6-0, late Thursday evening (Manila time) in the second round of the grass court Grand Slam.

But things are about to get harder for Eala, already making history as the first seeded female player from the Philippines to win two games at Wimbledon.

Eala and Swiatek have met twice in the past, with both splitting those matches.

Eala stunned Swiatek on the hardcourts of the Miami Open last year, one of the huge upsets the Filipino carved in the tournament to trigger her rise to tennis superstardom.

Swiatek got payback a month later on clay at the Madrid Open, rallying from a set down to beat Eala in the second round.

Their third-round duel on Saturday (Manila time) at Wimbledon will be their first on grass.

Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic produced a Wimbledon masterclass as the history-chasing star raced into the third round on Wednesday, while defending champion Jannik Sinner battled through before French Open champion Mirra Andreeva suffered a shock exit.

Djokovic demolished Stefanos Tsitsipas in a 98-minute rout that served as a statement of intent to Sinner and the rest of his Wimbledon title rivals.

The seven-time Wimbledon champion won, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, hitting 33 winners and making just seven unforced errors.

Djokovic’s latest attempt to make history by winning a record 25th Grand Slam singles title got off to a rocky start as he laboured against unheralded Wu Yibing in the first round on Monday.

He plays French 25th seed Arthur Rinderknech in the last 32.

“I’m feeling great. I like the terminology ‘vintage’, it brings back the best days and you feel very satisfied and joyful on the court when you’re playing this way,” said Djokovic after being asked if it was a vintage performance.

Bidding to become the oldest man to win a major title in the Open era, Djokovic—who won the most recent of his Wimbledon crowns in 2022—has increasingly looked his age over the last two Grand Slams.

The 39-year-old Serb crashed out in the French Open third round, blowing a two-set lead against Joao Fonseca.

But Djokovic underlined his enduring class with his latest win against Greek world No. 87 Tsitsipas, who has now lost their last 12 meetings.

Djokovic’s 104th match win at Wimbledon leaves him just one behind Roger Federer’s Open era record in the men’s singles.

Sinner wasn’t at his best again, but the world number one did just enough to beat Portugual’s Nuno Borges, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4.

The 24-year-old Italian had narrowly avoided an embarrassing first-round exit when he fought back from two sets to one down to beat Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic on Monday.

The four-time Grand Slam champion ended Carlos Alcaraz’s two-year reign as Wimbledon champion with a brilliant final victory over the Spaniard last year.

Andreeva arrived at the All England Club hailed as one of the sport’s rising stars after winning her maiden Grand Slam crown in Paris in June.

But the Russian teenager was unable to maintain the momentum from Roland Garros as Barbora Krejcikova recaptured the magic that inspired her unexpected Wimbledon title triumph two years ago.

The 30-year-old Czech, who also won the French Open in 2021, fought back for a dramatic 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory.—REPORTS FROM INQUIRER SPORTS DESK AND AFP

Rockstar Games has been monitoring toxicity and abuse in GTA Online voice chat (VoIP) using a voice analytics AI model throughout 2025. This is a fascinating research project that the American gaming giants have been doing with the help of Modulate’s Velma model. The tool basically monitors how and when players get angry and start abusing each other.

Modulate even released a full case study, which was shared by the game studio. Here is a more in-depth look at the case study for GTA Online toxicity in voice chats in 2025.

In-depth look into GTA Online voice chat toxicity monitoring done by Rockstar Games and Modulate AI

On July 2, 2026, Rockstar Games posted a newswire for GTA Online weekly updates before the Summer DLC. The developers basically crammed two weeks’ worth of content into it so that the new weekly update starts with the DLC.

At the end of this newswire, the company mentioned its partnership with Modulate, an AI voice analytics company, to moderate in-game voice chat in a better way. This partnership was first formed in 2023, when Modulate’s pilot model moderated GTA Online VoIPs. The AI company has now released a massive case study of the project.

How did Rockstar and Modulate monitor GTA Online voice chat?

This case study is done on GTA Online’s voice chat from January to December, 2025. The game is basically monitored by a moderation technology called ToxMod, which is powered by Velma, Modulate’s AI voice analytics system. This entire system identifies violations of Rockstar Games’ Community Guidelines.

Basically, if ToxMod detects someone violating community guidelines in VoIP by abusing or speaking harshly, it will take the necessary actions against them.

The case study firstly reported a reduction in community guidelines violations in 2025 by 35% and claimed that ToxMod operated at almost 98% accuracy.

Here are more details about how exactly Modulate and Rockstar Games monitored GTA Online voice chat and learnt about player behavior:

• ToxMod data is grabbed from January 1 to December 31, 2025.
• The data is recorded from a sample of 20,000 players across all platforms.
• Anger scores are aggregated across three-minute time intervals and GTA Online gameplay session data.
• In-game gameplay factors such as mission failure and repeated deaths are also studied to confirm sources of frustration before logoff.
• All player data is aggregated and analyzed collectively, not individually.

ToxMod’s findings after monitoring GTA Online voice chat

Modulate Velma’s ToxMod system has a unique way of detecting anger in a player’s voice and gives it a probability score. It is basically a measurement of anger identified by a vocal sentiment model. Basically, if someone is speaking harshly on the voice chat, the artificial intelligence will understand the tone.

Through this unique model, ToxMod found that abuse on VoIP angers a player a lot more than challenging gameplay mechanics. This is somewhat obvious since players will get a lot angrier at another person abusing them, rather than failing a mission or dying in the game on their own.

ToxMod found that players exposed to abuse in the previous five minutes show up to 50% higher anger scores compared to failing a mission or dying. This anger also increases the chances of them logging off the game by 50%.

All the data during angry moments was combined with existing gameplay session data to determine what usually gets people riled up.

Modulate basically studied the link between VoIP abuse and rage quitting, which is a popular term used for when a player gets so angry that they log off the game.

Hence, any form of voice chat abuse increased the likelihood of rage quitting by up to 50%. In simple terms: voice chat abuse drives anger, and anger in turn drives players to log off.

Also Read: Massive Bunker discounts and bonuses this week in GTA Online (July 2 – 13, 2026)

Future of voice chat in GTA Online

Note: This part is entirely subjective and reflects the writer’s opinion.

In Rockstar Games’ newswire, the company mentioned that it will introduce various quality-of-life improvements with the Kortz Center Heist. In the same section, they added the link to this case study.

Hence, an argument can be made that the developers might add new ways to moderate voice chat moving forward. The research with Modulate last year must have given them enough data to create new kinds of moderation to ensure a safe virtual environment for everyone.

This is even more important for Rockstar Games since they will soon release GTA 6, and potentially a multiplayer title tied with it, even though they have not announced anything related to it.

Check out our other content: