Rennae Stubbs and Samantha Stosur are the fourth and final doubles team to qualify for the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Stubbs and Stosur will make their debut at the Championships as a team and will join Dinara Safina, Serena Williams, Elena Dementieva, Caroline Wozniacki, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Venus Williams, Victoria Azarenka and the doubles teams of Cara Black/Liezel Huber, Venus Williams/Serena Williams and Nuria Llagostera Vives/Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, all of whom have previously qualified and are headed to Doha.
“It’s a privilege to make it to the Sony Ericsson Championships,” said Stubbs. “I’ve qualified for the Championships many times with different partners, but this year it’s extra special to be playing in Doha with a fellow Australian.”
“We are really excited about clinching a spot at the Sony Ericsson Championships,” said Stosur. “Rennae and I only teamed up at the beginning of the year and it’s been a very rewarding partnership so far as we’ve achieved a lot of great results, qualifying for Championships being the best one so far.”
The world’s top eight singles players and top four doubles teams from the 2009 Sony Ericsson WTA Tour season will compete for the coveted Sony Ericsson Championships title and a share of the record Championships prize money of $4.55 million.
After a great deal of success with other partners, Stubbs and Stosur began their exclusive doubles partnership in the beginning of the 2009 season and have quickly accumulated great results.
So far this year, the pair reached the finals at Wimbledon, the AEGON International (Eastbourne) and the Rogers Cup (Toronto). The Australian duo also reached the semifinals at the US Open, the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships (Dubai) and the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open (Madrid).
While this will be Stubbs and Stosur’s first appearance at the Sony Ericsson Championships as a team, Stosur has previously qualified for the year-end event three times and is a two-time Tour Championships doubles winner (2005, 2006), both with Lisa Raymond.
This will be Stubbs’ 14th appearance at the Championships (1992-93, 1996, 1998-2002, 2004-08), having won in 2001 (with Raymond) and finished runner-up four times (2004, 2005 2006 each with Cara Black and 2008 with Kveta Peschke).
The doubles line-up looks ‘competitive’!