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Taiwanese pair win through to main draw at Wimbledon

Taiwanese players had a good day on Thursday at the Wimbledon qualifying tournament at the Bank of England Sports Club in Roehampton, London.

Jimmy Wang beat Andrey Golubev of Russia 7-6, 7-6, 6-1 to earn a spot in the first round of the men's singles at the All England Championships, which begin on Monday.

Yesterday he was drawn to play another Russian, Igor Kunitsyn, in the opening round.

Although Kunitsyn is ranked No. 91 in the world compared to Wang's 167, the Taiwanese has beaten the the Russian on all three occasions they have met on court.

Their last match was in a challenger tournament in Istanbul in 2005 which Wang won in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3.

The 22-year-old will be playing in his third Wimbledon having beaten Rogerio Dutra Silva of Brazil and Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine earlier in the week to set up the clash with Golubev.

Meanwhile, Hsieh Su-wei had double cause for celebration after making the main draw in the women's singles and doubles.

The 21-year-old downed Mathilde Johansson of France 6-2, 1-6, 6-2 to earn herself a place alongside compatriot Chan Yung-jan in the main draw for the women's singles.

She had previously defeated Selima Sfar of Tunisia and Ekaterina Dzehalevich of Belarus to set up the clash with her French opponent.

However, Hsieh faces a tough task after being drawn to meet No.17 seed Tatiana Golovin of France.

Golovin, who was born in Moscow, reached the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2004 and her best performance in a Grand Slam event was a quarter-final appearance at the US Open last year.

Players entering the qualifying singles events get through three rounds on grass this week with the prize on offer being entry into the main tournament draw.

Unlike the Championships, there was no single `winner' of qualifying. Instead the players who won all three rounds -- 16 in the men's singles and 12 in the women's singles -- progressed, along with four pairs in each of the women's and men's doubles events.

Later on Thursday, Hsieh teamed up with Alla Kudryatseva of Russia to defeat Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic and Sandra Kloesel of Germany 6-3, 6-4 in the women's doubles to ensure they were one of the four female pairs.
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