Kazakhstan's second-ranked doubles player Zhibek Kulambaeva improved her position, moving up to 21st in the world rankings after reaching the semifinals in Hamburg. Meanwhile, the country's top doubles player, Anna Danilina, is preparing for the tournament in Washington, where she could face legendary Venus Williams in the second round, reports infohub.kz.
The 26-year-old from Almaty continues her ascent: in the latest WTA rankings (singles), she holds the 115th spot, a rise of 59 places over the past two weeks.
First, Kulambaeva teamed with Alina Charaeva (representing Armenia) to reach the final of the WTA 250 tournament in Iasi, Romania. Then last week, alongside Latvian tennis player Darja Semenistaja, she advanced to the semifinals of a similar tournament in Hamburg.
Kulambaeva and Semenistaja lost the final spot to eventual champions, Slovenian pair Dalila Jakupović and Nika Radišić. In the final, they defeated the Belgian-Russian duo of Magali Kempen and Alexandra Panova 5-7, 6-3, 10-5.
Another Kazakhstani, Yulia Putintseva, competing in Hamburg, lost to eventual semifinalist Elina Avanesyan of Armenia (3-6, 6-2, 2-6). The tournament winner was German Tamara Korpatsch, who beat Hungarian Anna Bondár 6-3, 6-3 in the final.
Notably, Korpatsch was eliminated in the first round of doubles, losing to the Kazakh-Latvian pair.
Ahead of the last Grand Slam of the season—the US Open, scheduled from August 30 to September 13—players are moving to North America. Next week, two WTA tournaments are planned: in Memphis (category 250) and Washington (category 500).
In the second tournament, the Mubadala DC Open, Kazakhstan's top doubles player Anna Danilina will compete. This time her partner is Canadian Leylah Fernandez.
According to the draw, Danilina could meet Venus Williams in the second round. For that, the 46-year-old American, paired with Russian Diana Shnaider, needs to defeat fellow American Quinn Gleason and Norwegian Ulrikke Eikeri. Danilina and Fernandez themselves must first get past the Chinese duo of Qianhui Tang and Yifan Xu.
In the top 10 of the WTA singles rankings, there are no changes. Elena Rybakina is skipping the Washington tournament, where she lost in the semifinals last year to the same Fernandez. Kazakhstan's top singles player has entered the WTA 1000 events in Toronto (August 2-13) and Cincinnati (August 13-23).
The Washington Open (Mubadala Citi DC Open) was founded in 1969 as a men's clay-court tournament. Since 1986 it has been played on hard courts, and since 2011 it has included women. It is the first and only joint ATP-WTA 500-level event.
The women's prize pool is $1.6 million, the men's $2.4 million.
Past winners include Americans Michael Chang, Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, Andy Roddick, Jessica Pegula, and Coco Gauff, as well as Frenchman Yannick Noah, Czech Ivan Lendl, Swede Stefan Edberg, Australian Lleyton Hewitt, and Russians Nadezhda Petrova and Svetlana Kuznetsova.