Not even the rain could stop Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei from advancing to the quarter-finals of the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur yesterday as she beat Casey Dellacqua of Australia 6-1, 7-5.
Showers over the Malaysian capital delayed the beginning of matches, but once Hsieh took to the court, she needed only 1 hour, 7 minutes to send Dellacqua packing in their second-round match.
The Taiwanese qualifier bettered her previous day’s mark for first-serve points won, winning 66 percent of them and taking six of 10 break points. Despite her dominant first set, Hsieh served four double faults, yet she had none in the second — and more challenging — set.
Meanwhile, the first-round match between Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland and Uzbekistan’s Akgul Amanmuradova was interrupted when the rain returned. The winner of that match will play the Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova.
Hsieh will next face the winner of the match between Pliskova and Radwanska or Amanmuradova.
There was one other completed second-round singles match, which saw fifth-seed Petra Martic of Croatia defeat Japan’s Kurumi Nara 6-2, 3-6, 6-0. Unlike the Hsieh-Dellacqua match, Martic and Nara battled it out for 4 hours, 23 minutes.
In a doubles quarter-final, Taiwanese duo Chang Kai-chen and Chuang Chia-jung continued their strong play by beating Yurika Sema of Japan and her partner, Varatchaya Wongteanchai of Thailand, 6-2, 6-4 in a match that took only 1 hour, 6 minutes.
All the other scheduled matches had to be postponed.
Late on Tuesday, former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic scraped through the opening round, barely beating Caroline Garcia of France in a hard-fought three-set thriller.
Jankovic, second seed at the tournament, had to slog for nearly three hours before pulling off a 7-6 (9/7), 4-6, 7-6 (7/2) victory over 17-year-old Garcia, who fell apart toward the end.
Rain interrupted the match several times, with Jankovic of Serbia saying she struggled to play in the humid weather after only two days of training in the Southeast Asian country.
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