Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and Peng Shuai (彭帥) of China claimed their second Grand Slam title by defeating Italian duo Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in the final of the women’s doubles at the French Open yesterday.
The top-seeded cross-strait duo downed the second seeds 6-4, 6-1 in 1 hour, 14 minutes on Court Philippe Chatrier at Roland Garros in Paris.
Hsieh and Peng, who will be joint world No. 1s in the WTA Tour doubles rankings when they are published today, converted seven of 10 break-point chances against the joint world No. 3s to maintain a perfect 12-0 record in WTA Tour doubles finals.
Photo: Reuters
Hsieh and Peng fought back from 3-1 down to take the first set 6-4, breaking Sara Errani’s recently remodeled service twice on the back of some astute lobs to counter the Italians’ volleying at the net, before winning six straight games in the second to close out the victory.
“Don’t be sad ... you guys will win much more than us, so let us win this one,” Peng said to her opponents during the trophy presentation. “It is the dream to win.”
Hsieh and Peng’s only previous triumph at a Grand Slam was at Wimbledon last year.
Errani and Vinci are 19-12 in WTA Tour finals, including 4-3 in Grand Slam finals.
It was the third straight year that they were in the final at Roland Garros, having been victorious in 2012 and runners-up last year.
Hsieh and Peng have the edge in the head-to-head record between the pairings.
After losing their initial encounter in the third round of the Australian Open last year, they were victorious later that year in the second round at Indian Wells and again in the final in Rome.
It was the first time that the top two seeded pairings had played in a Grand Slam doubles final since second-seeded US duo Serena Williams and Venus Williams beat top seeds Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Liezel Huber of the US at the 2010 Australian Open, and the first time at the French Open since top seeds Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain and Argentina’s Paola Suarez defeated second-seeded Black and Huber in 2005.
Errani and Vinci remain the No. 1 team on the WTA’s Road To Singapore leaderboard. Hsieh and Peng will move up to second on the leaderboard when the rankings are published today.
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