Kazakhstan's second-ranked doubles player Zhibek Kulambaeva, after reaching the semifinals in Hamburg, rose to 21st place in the world rankings. The country's top doubles player Anna Danilina is preparing for the Washington tournament, where she could meet the legendary Venus Williams in the second round. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
The 26-year-old Kulambaeva continues her climb up the rankings. In the latest WTA rankings, the Almaty native is already 115th. Over two weeks, Zhibek's progress amounted to 59 points.
First, Kulambaeva, paired with Alina Charaeva (playing for Armenia), reached the final of the WTA-250 tournament in Iasi, Romania. And last week, in tandem with Latvia's Darja Semenistaja, she reached the semifinals of the same category tournament in Hamburg.
Zhibek and Daria lost their spot in the final to, as it turned out later, the future champions. Slovenians Dalila Jakupovic and Nika Radisic defeated the Belgian-Russian pair Magali Kempen/Alexandra Panova in the final – 5:7, 6:3, 10:5.
Incidentally, Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva, who also played in Hamburg, lost to future semifinalist Elina Avanesyan of Armenia – 3:6, 6:2, 2:6. And the main trophy of the MSC Hamburg Ladies Open was won by Tamara Korpatsch. The German defeated Hungary's Anna Bondar in the final – 6:3, 6:3.
Interestingly, in the doubles draw, Korpatsch suffered a first-round defeat to the Kazakh-Latvian tandem.
Ahead of the final Grand Slam tournament of the season, the US Open (August 30 – September 13), the tennis caravan moves to the North American continent. Next week, two WTA tournaments will take place there: in Memphis (category 250) and Washington (500).
In the second of these, the Mubadala DC Open, Kazakhstan's top doubles player Anna Danilina will participate. This time in tandem with Canada's Leylah Fernandez.
By the will of the draw, in the second round, the Kazakh player could meet Venus Williams on court. For this, the 46-year-old American, paired with Russia's Diana Shnaider, needs to defeat her compatriot Quinn Gleason and Norway's Ulrikke Eikeri. And Danilina and Fernandez need to get past Chinese players Tang Qianhui and Xu Yifan.
There were no changes in the top 10 of the WTA singles rankings. Elena Rybakina is skipping the Washington tournament, where she lost in the semifinals last year to the aforementioned Fernandez. The world No. 2 has entered the thousand-level tournaments in Toronto (August 2–13) and Cincinnati (August 13–23).
The Washington Open (Mubadala Citi DC Open) was founded as a men's clay court tournament in 1969. Since 1986, it has been played on hard courts, and since 2011, also for women. It is the first and only tournament with a '500' ranking, joint for ATP and WTA.
The prize fund for the women's tournament is $1.6 million, for the men's – $2.4 million.
Over the years, the tournament has been won by Americans Michael Chang, Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, Andy Roddick, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff. As well as Frenchman Yannick Noah, Czech Ivan Lendl, Swede Stefan Edberg, Australian Lleyton Hewitt, Russians Nadezhda Petrova and Svetlana Kuznetsova.