Bay Area product to make WTA Finals debut in doubles

Giuliana Olmos, who grew up in Fremont in the
San Francisco Bay Area, practices during the re-
cent BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Photo
by Paul Bauman

   The WTA announced the last three doubles teams in the WTA Finals today.

   Earning berths in the year-end finale, Nov. 10-17 in Guadalajara, are the pairings of Alexa Guarachi and Desirae Krawczyk, Darija Jurak and Andreja Klepac, and Sharon Fichman and Giuliana Olmos. All but Klepac will make their tournament debut. 

   Jurak and Klepac won the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, Calif., in August. Olmos was born in Austria, grew up in Fremont in the San Francisco Bay Area and represents Mexico.

   The three teams will join Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara, Hsieh Su-Wei and Elise Mertens, Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Demi Schuurs, and Samantha Stosur and Zhang Shuai.

   Shibahara was born in Mountain View in the Bay Area. Melichar-Martinez won the 2019 San Jose title with Kveta Peschke, then 44. 

   The pairings of Coco Gauff and Caty McNally and Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani also qualified for the WTA Finals but will not compete, according to the WTA, allowing Fichman and Olmos to play. Dabrowski and Stefani reached this year's San Jose final. 

   WTA Tour — No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia defeated Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium 6-3, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals of the Transylvania Open, an indoor hardcourt tournament in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

   Kontaveit, ranked a career-high No. 14, has won her last seven matches and 23 of 27 with three titles under her new coach, Dmitry Tursunov, a 38-year-old Moscow native who trained in Northern California as a junior and professional. Van Uytvanck won the 2016 Stockton Challenger. 

   USTA Pro Circuit — No. 2 seed Claire Liu of Thousand Oaks in the Los Angeles region beat Katie Volynets, 19, of Walnut Creek in the Bay Area 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 to advance to the quarterfinals of the $80,000 Christus Health Pro Challenge in Tyler, Texas.

   Both Liu and Volynets qualified for Wimbledon this year. Liu reached the second round of the main draw, while Volynets lost in the first round.

   In the Tyler doubles quarterfinals, No. 2 seeds Olmos and Marcela Zacarias of Mexico topped Amercans Alexa Glatch and Quinn Gleason 2-6, 6-3 [10-6]. Zacarias reached the singles final in the recent $60,000 Berkeley (Calif.) Challenger.

   Meanwhile, No. 4 seed Govind Nanda of Sacramento, Calif., and Stanford teammates Tristan Boyer of Altadena and Max Basing, a qualifier from Great Britain, advanced to the singles quarterfinals of the $25,000 USTA Men's Pro Tennis Championship of Calabasas. Altadena and Calabasas are in the L.A. area.

   Another Stanford player, Arthur Fery, and Mark Whitehouse, both of Great Britain, moved into the Calabasas doubles semifinals as the No. 2 seeds.

   In Austin, Texas, unseeded Americans Elysia Bolton and Maegan Manasse, a University of California, Berkeley assistant coach and former Bears All-American, cruised into the doubles semifinals of a $25,000 tournament.