The Romanian-Russian pair Sorana Cîrstea/Ana Kalinskaia qualified on Friday for the doubles final of the WTA 1000 tennis tournament in Madrid, with total prizes of 7,854,000 euros, after defeating the duo Su-Wei Hsieh (Taiwan)/Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) with 7-6 (7/2), 6-4.
Cîrstea and Kalinskaia secured the victory after an hour and 32 minutes against the number three favorites.
Cîrstea and her partner were trailing 2-0 in the first set, but managed to win four consecutive games (4-2). Hsieh and Ostapenko equalized (4-4), but Cîrstea and Kalinskaia had a set point at 6-5, which they missed. In the end, the Romanian-Russian pair triumphed with 7-2 in the tiebreak. The second set had several score turnarounds, but Cîrstea and Kalinskaia won the last three games, the set, and the match.
Cîrstea and Kalinskaia secured a prize of 212,060 euros and 650 WTA points.
In the final, they will face Veronika Kudermetova (Russia) and Elise Mertens (Belgium), who won in the semifinals with 4-6, 6-4, 10-8 against the duo Victoria Azarenka (Belarus)/Ashlyn Krueger (USA).
Cîrstea has five WTA doubles titles (the last one obtained in 2019), as well as five other finals played.
The final will take place on Sunday at 4:30 PM.