RIYADH: The WTA has announced the doubles teams that have qualified for the WTA Finals Riyadh, which are Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe, and Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend.
They are the third, fourth and fifth pairings to secure their participation after Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok, and Hsieh Su-Wei and Elise Mertens confirmed their qualification in September.
Over half the doubles field is now set for the WTA Finals Riyadh, with three qualification places remaining on the PIF Race to the WTA Finals.
The WTA Finals Riyadh is a key element of the Saudi Tennis Federation’s plans to grow the sport in the Kingdom and have 1 million participating by 2030.
This is a part of the WTA’s aims to grow the game worldwide.
Paolini will debut at the WTA Finals, while Errani returns, having competed in doubles from 2012-2014 and qualified in singles in 2012 and 2013.
The Italian duo won the WTA 500 Upper Austria Ladies Linz and the WTA 1000 Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome, finished as runners-up at Roland-Garros, and clinched gold in doubles at the Paris Olympics.
This season marks Canadian Dabrowski’s sixth WTA Finals appearance, with her partner Routliffe being the first New Zealand qualifier last year. They went undefeated in the 2023 group stages and won the WTA 250 Rothesay Open Nottingham.
They also reached four finals at WTA 1000 events in Toronto, Miami, Eastbourne, and Wimbledon, where Routliffe became the PIF WTA World No. 1 in doubles.
Siniakova and Townsend, who won Wimbledon in July, have also qualified for the WTA Finals. Townsend debuts, while Siniakova makes her sixth consecutive appearance, having won in 2021 and finishing as runner-up in 2018 and 2022.
The Czech-US duo teamed up in May, reaching the quarterfinals in Rome, winning Wimbledon, and making the semifinals at the US Open.
The 2024 WTA Finals features the top eight singles and doubles teams on the PIF Race to the WTA Finals Leaderboard, with the eighth spot going to the singles player and doubles team that have won a Grand Slam if ranked No. 8 to No. 20.
This showcases the world’s best eight singles players and doubles teams competing in a round-robin format.
The singles champion lifts the WTA Finals Billie Jean King Trophy and the doubles champions earns the WTA Finals Martina Navratilova Trophy.
