Tennis: Erakovic into WTA doubles final

Marina Erakovic is through to her second consecutive WTA doubles final. Photo / Getty Images.

Kiwi tennis pro Marina Erakovic is through to her second consecutive WTA doubles final after teaming with former world No1 Cara Black (Zimbabwe) at the US$235,000 Strasbourg tournament.

The pair played two matches in one day to reach the final where they now face Japan's Kimiko Date-Krumm and South Africa's Chanelle Sheepers for the title.

In the quarterfinal Erakovic and Black beat the Polish pairing of Linette Magda and Piter Katarzyna 6-3 6-4 to advance to the semifinals where they then accounted for Kristina Barrois (Germany) and Irina Buryakhok (Ukraine) 5-7 6-0 11-9.

Erakovic and Black will team up again at Roland Garros next week and Wimbledon a few weeks later. Two weeks ago the pair made the Madrid final together.

At Roland Garros Erakovic has been drawn to play Britain's Elena Baltacha in the first round of singles.

Erakovic is currently ranked at 91 while the 29-year old Baltacha, who has a world ranking of 234 and had to battle through qualifying to make the main draw.

In their only previous meeting Baltacha won in three sets, however that was in 2010. If Erakovic wins this match she will play the winner of the match between 16th seed Dominika Cibulkova from Slovakia and Ukraine's Lesia Tsurenko.

Meanwhile New Zealand men's No1 Rubin Statham is through to the singles semifinals and doubles final at the US$15,000 DaeGu Futures in Korea.

Statham will play his doubles partner, Dane Propoggia in singles and then team up with him to take on the Korean pair of Yong-Kyu Lim and Sung Ji Nam for the title.