In their first tournament together as doubles World No. 2 and World No. 1 respectively, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai of China cruised into the second round with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Oksana Kalashnikova of Georgia in just 52 minutes at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, on Thursday.
Hsieh had unsuccessfully teamed up with her sister, Hsieh Shu-ying, for two tournaments in South America after she and Peng won the Qatar Open doubles title last month, while the Chinese player had returned home.
Reunited in California, the No. 1 seeds saved all three break points they faced, while converting four of nine break-point chances to set up a second-round clash with either Russian duo Alisa Kleybanova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova or Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US and Russia’s Nadia Petrova.
In other doubles matches on Thursday, Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua survived Martina Hingis and Sabine Lisicki’s upset bid, while third-seeded Italian duo Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci crashed out.
Seventh seeds Barty and Dellacqua eventually secured a 6-4, 6-7 (0/7), 10-6 triumph, while four-time Grand Slam winners Errani and Vinci lost to wild-card pairing Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia and Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-3, 3-6, 10-6.
“We haven’t played together since the Aussie Open and were expecting a tough one,” Stosur told the WTA Web site. “We’re really pleased with the way we went out there and played. We knew that we were going to have to play well against them because they’ve been one of the best teams in the world for quite a while, so it’s a really good win for us.”
Stosur said she expects to keep partnering Kuznetsova in the near future.
“We’re definitely playing Miami and then after that we need to talk about where the next ones are. We’re enjoying playing together, so that’s the plan,” Stosur told the WTA Web site.
Also on Thursday, second-seeded Russian duo Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina rallied from a set and a break down to defeat Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Liezel Huber of the US 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 10-8.
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