Defending champions, Dulko and Pennetta qualify for Istanbul year-end championship – Tennis News
The team of Flavia Pennetta and Gisela Dulko sealed the third doubles spot in the year-end TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships. They would now fly to Istabul, Turkey where they would face-off with the teams of Kveta Peschke and Katarina
Srebotnik and Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond plus one more team that will make it to the top four at this year end.
Battle for the final spot continues between the teams of Victoria Azarenka and Maria Kirilenko and Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova; one of them would join the rest of the three already qualified teams at the state of the art
Sinan Erdem Arena. King and Shvedova have a better chance of making it to the top four by winning the title at Osaka, Japan this week. The title for King and Shvedova will clear the platform for them and knock-out the competition from Azarenka and Kirilenko
for the final spot in year-end championship at Istanbul.
The WTA and Turkish Tennis Federation welcomed the latest inclusion of the team of Pennetta and Dulko and wished them best of luck for their title defence. Chairman and CEO of the WTA, Stacey Allaster said “It is terrific that
last year's doubles champions will be back to defend their title in Istanbul. Gisela and Flavia broke through to win their first Grand Slam doubles title at the Australian Open, held the No.1 doubles ranking between them for eight months, and have hit great
form recently to reach consecutive finals at Premier events in Asia."
Dulko showed her delight over qualifying to the year-end championship and proclaimed that she never thought that her team would make it to Istanbul before their trip to Asia. She promises her fans to put up a great display of team
play and would do their best to defend their title and win the title consecutively for the second time. She said “We are so happy to get back to the Championships together and hope to play well. We usually do well when the pressure is high, so it will be a
great opportunity to play in a new city and new venue".
Seven women have also qualified for the singles tournament which includes Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka, Li Na, Vera Zvonareva and Samantha Stosur. Fight for the place in the last spot continues
between Agnieszka Radwanska and Marion Bartoli. However, Bartoli just has an outer chance to make it to the grand finale as she needs to clinch the Osaka and Moscow tournaments in next two weeks. Radwanska just need to reach to the quarter-finals in Moscow
and if both of them fail to make the prescribed cut then Andrea Petkovic also enters the race for the top eight.
Tags: