Taiwan made a steady start to the Asia/Oceania Fed Cup round robin tournament at the National Tennis Centre in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Their Group 1 match against Kazakhstan started off with a defeat when Sessil Karatantcheva beat Chang Kai-chen 6-4, 6-3. Chan Yung-jan won the second singles match to make it 1-1 when she defeated Yaroslava Shvedova 6-3, 6-4.
The doubles match between Shvedova and Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan and Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Chuang Chia-jung was suspended with the score finely balanced at 3-6, 6-2, 5-4.
Next up are Uzbekistan today, before they play their final group match against Thailand tomorrow.
Taiwan have been able to call on their strongest team of Chan, Chang, Hsieh and Chuang, with Wang Shi-ting the non-playing captain.
This is in stark contrast to last year’s tournament when only Chuang was available and Taiwan finished seventh in the eight-team competition, being forced to defeat India in a relegation play-off to avoid dropping into Group II.
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