RIYADH: The WTA has announced the doubles teams that have qualified for the WTA Finals Riyadh, which are Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe, and Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend.

They are the third, fourth and fifth pairings to secure their participation after Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok, and Hsieh Su-Wei and Elise Mertens confirmed their qualification in September.

Over half the doubles field is now set for the WTA Finals Riyadh, with three qualification places remaining on the PIF Race to the WTA Finals.

The WTA Finals Riyadh is a key element of the Saudi Tennis Federation’s plans to grow the sport in the Kingdom and have 1 million participating by 2030.

This is a part of the WTA’s aims to grow the game worldwide.

Paolini will debut at the WTA Finals, while Errani returns, having competed in doubles from 2012-2014 and qualified in singles in 2012 and 2013.

The Italian duo won the WTA 500 Upper Austria Ladies Linz and the WTA 1000 Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome, finished as runners-up at Roland-Garros, and clinched gold in doubles at the Paris Olympics.

This season marks Canadian Dabrowski’s sixth WTA Finals appearance, with her partner Routliffe being the first New Zealand qualifier last year. They went undefeated in the 2023 group stages and won the WTA 250 Rothesay Open Nottingham.

They also reached four finals at WTA 1000 events in Toronto, Miami, Eastbourne, and Wimbledon, where Routliffe became the PIF WTA World No. 1 in doubles.

Siniakova and Townsend, who won Wimbledon in July, have also qualified for the WTA Finals. Townsend debuts, while Siniakova makes her sixth consecutive appearance, having won in 2021 and finishing as runner-up in 2018 and 2022.

The Czech-US duo teamed up in May, reaching the quarterfinals in Rome, winning Wimbledon, and making the semifinals at the US Open.

The 2024 WTA Finals features the top eight singles and doubles teams on the PIF Race to the WTA Finals Leaderboard, with the eighth spot going to the singles player and doubles team that have won a Grand Slam if ranked No. 8 to No. 20.

This showcases the world’s best eight singles players and doubles teams competing in a round-robin format.

The singles champion lifts the WTA Finals Billie Jean King Trophy and the doubles champions earns the WTA Finals Martina Navratilova Trophy.

LOS ANGELES: The San Diego Padres sent the star-studded Los Angeles Dodgers to the brink of postseason elimination with a 6-5 victory in a roller-coaster Major League Baseball playoff clash on Tuesday.

A wild game at an electric Petco Park saw Los Angeles take a first-inning lead through a Mookie Betts solo home run before the Padres punished multiple Dodgers fielding blunders to erupt for six runs in the second inning.

The Dodgers recovered from that second inning disaster to get within one run after Teoscar Hernandez blasted a towering grand slam off Padres starter Michael King to make it 6-5 in the top of the third.

But after that early frenzy of scoring, the Padres pitching unit took over and closed out a win, which gives them the chance to seal victory in the best-of-five National League Division Series in Game 4 on Wednesday.

The Padres, who blitzed the Dodgers 10-2 in an ill-tempered game two on Sunday, once again turned on the offensive power early on.

Fernando Tatis Jr.’s two-run home run off Walker Buehler completed a second inning catastrophe for the Dodgers, who squandered the opportunity to take early outs through fielding mistakes from Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas.

Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani — the home run hero of his team’s Game 1 victory — once again struggled to make an impression on the Padres pitching, finishing with just one hit from four at bats.

“Just amazing. What can I say? It’s a beautiful time to be here,” an elated Tatis said after the win.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, so it’s one step at a time. We’re showing up — we’re going hard from the first pitch, and that’s the energy that we need.”

In Tuesday’s other playoff game, Pete Alonso led an offensive onslaught and Sean Manaea produced a gem as the New York Mets took a 2-1 series lead against the Philadelphia Phillies with a 7-2 win at Citi Field.

Alonso blasted a second-inning home run to open the scoring while Manaea shut down the Phillies bats through seven scoreless innings.

The result means New York, who finished in third place behind Philadelphia and Atlanta in the regular season, can book an improbable trip to the National League Championship Series with victory in Game 4 on Wednesday.

Philadelphia had yanked back the series momentum with a thrilling win in Game 2 on Sunday after being stunned in Game 1 a day earlier.

But the Mets reclaimed the initiative in clinical fashion on Tuesday thanks to the first playoff victory of Manaea’s career.

The win was especially sweet for Manaea, who had been battered for five runs in less than two innings by the Phillies during a nightmare playoff performance in 2022.

With Manaea dominant, the Mets batting jumped on Phillies starting pitcher Aaron Nola.

Alonso got things going with a 385-foot blast to right field in the second before Jesse Winker doubled the lead with the second homer of the game to make it 2-0 in the fourth.

Nola was hooked after giving up two walks to help the Mets load the bases in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Reliever Orion Kerkering came in to staunch the bleeding but shipped a two-out single to Starling Marte which allowed Alonso and Brandon Nimmo to cross home plate for a 4-0 lead.

The Mets tacked on two insurance runs in the bottom of the seventh after Jose Iglesias singled to score Harrison Baden and Nimmo, making the score 6-0.

Philadelphia finally got on the scoreboard in the eighth inning after singles from Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos, but the Mets extended their lead in the eighth before closer Ryne Stanek wrapped up the win.