There have been many memorable moments in the history of the Tour Championships, a lot of which have occurred on the doubles court. Doubles came aboard as part of the event in Boca Raton in 1973, a year after the first singles Championships, with Rosie Casals and Margaret Court the first champions.
The event moved to Los Angeles the next year, and once again was captured by Casals, but this time with Billie Jean King. In 1977 it moved again, this time to New York, where it was won by a player who would get very familiar with the winner's trophy, Martina Navratilova, who partnered with Betty Stove.
Navratilova would end up winning the event a record 12 times with three different partners, including six straight times from 1980 to 1985. She was 12-0 in Championships finals, with 10 of those titles coming alongside Pam Shriver, including five straight from 1981 to 1985. Another astonishing record is Navratilova won both the singles and doubles event at the Championships five times. Only two other players have accomplished that feat even once - Jana Novotna in 1997 and Martina Hingis in 2000.
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After Navratilova won her final doubles Championships in 1991, some fresh faces joined the winner's circle, including Gigi Fernandez and three-time champ Natasha Zvereva, who were victorious in 1993 and 1994, and Lindsay Davenport, who won three straight years with three different partners from 1996 to 1998.
Hingis and Anna Kournikova took the title the last two years the event was held in New York, 1999 and 2000. The one year it was held in Munich, 2001, three-time champ Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs won. The next four years, Los Angeles was the host, producing four different winning teams. One of those duos, Raymond and Samantha Stosur, won the last year it was held in Los Angeles, 2005, and the first year it was held in Madrid, 2006.
Cara Black and Liezel Huber took the title in 2007 and then again in 2008, when the tournament moved to its current home of Doha. If they are victorious this year, they will be the only team besides Navratilova and Shriver to win the event at least three straight times. The teams in this year's event, which will be held from October 31 to November 1, are Black and Huber, the Williams sisters, Nuria Llagostera Vives and María José Martínez Sánchez and Stosur and Stubbs. Of those players, Black, Huber, Stosur and Stubbs have played in the doubles event previously, and all of them have at least one title.
The tournament will be held in Doha again next year before moving to Istanbul for the 2011-2013 Championships.
