ZIMBABWE’S Cara Black and her doubles partner Marina Erakovic from New Zealand have lost their last two women’s WTA doubles tennis finals in the space of two weeks, but will be hoping for third-time luck when they take part in the second Grand Slam of the year at Roland Garros.
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Black and Erakovic lost in the final of the Strasbourg International in Germany at the weekend after going down to the fourth-seeded pair of Japan’s Kimiko Date-Krumm and South African Chanelle Scheepers 6-4, 3-6 (14-12).
It followed another last ditch defeat in the women’s doubles final at the Madrid Open in Spain a fortnight ago for Black and Erakovic.
Having done admirably well on major clay tournaments in the buildup to the French Open, the pair will be hoping to go one better at Roland Garros in the next two weeks after they were handed a favourable first round draw for the prestigious tournament.
Their first-round opponents are the unseeded German pair of Angelique Kerber and Andrea Petkovic.
Black’s partner Erakovic (25) told the Tennis New Zealand website that they had a good chance of doing well in France.
“Cara is an amazing player, hugely positive and we click well and are a good team, so hopefully we can keep it up,” Erakovic said.
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She has forged a strong combination this month with Black, who has a glittering career in doubles.
They reached the final of major clay tournaments in Madrid and Strasbourg to push the Auckland-born stars’ doubles ranking to 32, while Black has risen to 46th since making a comeback in January.
The partnership came about when Erakovic’s regular British partner Heather Watson was sidelined with glandular fever at the same time as Black (34) split with her Australian partner Anastasia Rodionova.
