Germany’s Angelique Kerber has qualified for the season-ending WTA Championship finals in Istanbul after beating Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic 6-4, 7-6 (8/6) at the Linz tournament.
The 25-year-old German – ranked 10th in the world but top seed at Linz – beat third seed Ivanovic in 1hr 37 minutes to win her first title of the year and third of her career, following those in Paris and Copenhagen last year.
Kerber fills the final spot at the The WTA Championships, which features the top eight singles players and the top four doubles pairings competing for a record $US6 million ($A6.3 million) in prize money and is being hosted in Istanbul, which runs from October 22-27, for a third successive year.
The other seven are American Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, Polish player Agnieszka Radwanska, China’s Li Na, Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, Italian Sara Errani and Jelena Jankovic of Serbia.
Russian drawcard Maria Sharapova, ranked three in the world, announced last Monday she would be unable to comnpete there because of a nagging right shoulder injury.