World number six Serena Williams is the fifth player to qualify for the season-ending Championships, after Justine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ana Ivanovic. By reaching the final of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, Williams has achieved this feat for the seventh time in her career.

The Sony Ericsson Championships will take place in Madrid form November 6-11. It is the richest annual women's sporting event in the world which gathers the Top 8 singles players and Top 4 doubles teams from the season to battle it out for a share of the $3-million prize purse. And don't forget that from 2008 prize money will be even greater. (source: WTA Tour)

Ana Ivanovic became the fourth player to qualify for the Sony Ericsson Championships, joining Justine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Ivanovic qualified for the season-ending event on Friday, after a 6-1 6-2 victory over Tatiana Golovin in Luxembourg. The win provided the Serb with enough points to enter the prestigious tournament in Madrid, Spain, which will be held November 6-11. Eight singles players will be eligible to compete (so, there are four more slots to be filled), in addition to four doubles teams. (via The Ana Ivanovic website)

Justine Henin and Jelena Jankovic are the first women to qualify for the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships in Madrid, November 6-11. The Belgian and the Serb are currently in first and second place respectively in the Race to the Sony Ericsson Championships with 3245 and 2990 points each.

Henin, who took the title in Madrid last year, currently leads the WTA Tour, winning five titles so far this season (Dubai Tennis Championships in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Qatar Total Open in Doha, Qatar; J&S Cup in Warsaw, Poland; Roland Garros in Paris, France; International Women's Open in Eastbourne, Great Britain), while world number three Jankovic has claimed four titles to date in 2007 (ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand; Family Circle Cup in Charleston, South Carolina, USA; Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome, Italy; and DFS Classic in Birmingham, Great Britain). Read more »

In 2008, the winner of the most prestigious event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour will receive a record $1,485,000, the largest single guaranteed payout in women’s tennis today. The total tournament prize money will be incredible $4.45 million. All this means that women will earn as much money as men in their season-ending Championships, which is the Tennis Masters Cup.

This year in November the eight-woman event will take place in Madrid, after which it moves to Doha where it will be held from 2008 to 2010, while Istanbul will be the host from 2011 to 2013.