Tennis: Kiwi Erin Routliffe goes down in first WTA final

Erin Routliffe of New Zealand (L). Photo / Getty Images.

New Zealand's Erin Routliffe and her Chilean doubles partner Alexa Guarachi have been beaten in the doubles final of the WTA tournament in Washington DC.

They've lost in straight sets 6-3 6-2 to the third seeds Xinyn Hun of China and Croatian Darija Jurak.

Games went with serve until the third seeds got the only break of the opening set with Routliffe and Guarachi missing two break point opportunities as they dropped the first set in 34 minutes.

Routliffe and Guarachi were broken in the opening game of the second set and their opponents cruised to victory in 1 hour 7.

Despite the loss Routliffe who started the year ranked 339 in the WTA doubles rankings, will crack the top 100 for the first time when the rankings come out later today after reaching her first tour level final. The 23-year-old is projected to move from her current ranking of 114 to around 95.

Routliffe will head to the WTA Premier tournament in Montreal this week for practice ahead of playing in next week's ITF US$100,000 tournament in Vancouver.

Meanwhile a trio of Kiwis are into the final round of qualifying at their respective tournaments in Asia and Europe.

New Zealand's top ranked singles player Rubin Statham has beaten India's Sasi Kumar Mukund 6-4 6-4 at the US$150,000 Challenger tournament in Jinan in China and will face another Indian Manish Sureshkumar for a place in the main draw.

19-year-old Ajeet Rai has beaten Dutchman Amaury 6-3, 6-0 to reach the final round of qualifying at the ITF US$25,000 tournament in Jakarta.

18-year-old Macsen Sisam has beaten Hungary's Adam Torocsik 6-3 6-4 to reach the final round of qualifying at the ITF US$15,000 tournament in Novi Sad in Serbia and will face Serbian Dusan Rajic for a place in the main draw.