Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, important new goal on'horizon

For the second year in a row, Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini have pulled out the ticket for the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as far as women’s doubles is concerned: the Olympic champions are in fact the second pair to qualify for the season finals of the women’s professional circuit after the one composed of Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova.

The two blues, in the Race to the WTA Finals, collected 6,125 points, slightly less than the 6,290 of Taylor and Siniakova and a good 747 more than the pair in third place in the ranking, composed of Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe, the latter champions in 2024 at the Finals after beating just Townsend and Siniakova in the finals.

Errani and Paolini have won two WTA 1000s this year, in Doha and Rome, before conquering Roland Garros. The one in Riyadh will be an opportunity to take revenge with respect to the 2024 edition of the Finals, in which the blue champions failed to get past the group stage, finishing third in the group that had instead promoted Dabrowski/Routliffe and Chan/Kudermetova to the semifinals.

Jasmine Paolini is struggling, among other things, for qualification to the WTA Finals as far as the individual tournament is concerned: in the Race, at the last update, the Italian tennis player is ninth with 3,526 points, just 225 points below the eighth place occupied by Elena Rybakina (3,751). At the moment, the 29-year-old would be the first of the athletes called to take over in case one of the rightful qualifiers forfeits.