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LONDON. — After successfully defending their doubles title in Tokyo, India’s Sania Mirza and Zimbabwe’s Cara Black have become the fourth tennis team to qualify for the Year Ending WTA Championships in Singapore in October.This year’s US Open Mixed Doubles champion Mirza has become the first woman from her country to qualify for the year-ending championships, in singles or doubles.

In a statement, the WTA said this is the first time the pair will make their appearance at the competition. It will be Mirza’s first showing at the event, unlike Black, who will be making her 11th appearance in the competition having qualified for the previous 10 years with three different partners — Elena Likhovtseva, Rennae Stubbs and Liezel Huber. Mirza and Black will compete in the eight-team doubles competition, joining Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, and defending champions Peng Shuai and Hsieh Su-Wei, who qualified earlier.

Mirza was very excited on qualifying for the event and said she is already looking forward to competing against all the top doubles teams.

She also added that they already have a lot to celebrate, because she has qualified for the first time and Black has qualified for the first time since becoming a mother.

“Cara and I are excited to have qualified for the WTA Finals and look forward to competing against the best teams in the world,” Mirza said.

“I’ll be making my first appearance at the season finale while for Cara it’s the first time since she became a mother, so we have lots to celebrate already.

“We’re having a great year and we hope to continue that success with a great run in Singapore.”

Mirza and Black are also back in the top 5 of the WTA Rankings, after winning the Pan Pacific doubles title in Tokyo on Saturday and have reduced the gap between them and second-placed Su-Wei Hsieh/Shuai Peng and third-placed Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina in the WTA Race for Istanbul. Apart from winning in Tokyo, Mirza and Black also won on clay in Oeiras, Portugal.

They have joined Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, Su-Wei Hsieh/Shuai Peng and Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina, who had already qualified for the event. — Tennis World.