After a whirlwind season, winning four titles including the French Open crown, Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic have cemented their place in the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore and are the second pair to do so after Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza.
Their first season together; first finals
Previously the French pair had qualified for the finals just last year but with different partners and fell in the round robin stage. They decided at the end of last year to come together with the Olympics in mind and admitted Singapore was one of their goals. “It was one of our goals when we started to play together to qualify for the WTA Finals. We are always improving and I am looking forward to competing in Singapore again,” said Garcia.
Six finals, four titles
They had a tremendous start reaching the finals in their first tournament together in Sydney. Even though they lost to Hingis and Mirza, the pair will go on to reach five more finals. The duo reached the Dubai finals but despite being favorites fell short yet again. That seemed to have momentarily halted their progress as they experienced a couple of early round exits during the hard courts season.
However, as the clay swing began, the pair clicked once more and went on to win their first title on the green clay at Charleston beating the top seeds of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova. The Frenchwomen did not stop there and continued their win streak stringing back to back title wins at Stuttgart and Madrid and in both events they topped the doubles world number one of Hingis and Mirza in the finals. Their win streak stretched to 15 before eventually falling in the quarterfinals in Rome.
The icing on the cake came when they beat former champions Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova at the French Open in front of their home crowd to clinch their first ever doubles Grand Slam crown. It was their biggest title yet and it propelled them up the rankings to world number two and cemented their status as clay court queens.
Since then, however, they have struggled for results but as top seeds at the US Open they have once again found their rhythm and are currently in the semifinals which had confirmed their place at the WTA Finals. “We are excited and happy to have qualified,” quipped Mladenovic. “It’s a dream come true to qualify and celebrate the great year we’ve had.”
Six more spots
As the US swing comes to a close soon, the remaining pairs have to give their best during the Asian swing as they vie for the remaining six spots.