Top seeds Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Peng Shuai of China cruised into the third round of the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris yesterday after a 6-1, 6-3 second-round victory over Russia’s Vera Dushevina and Zheng Saisai of China.
Though they have picked up titles in Doha and Indian Wells this season, the No. 1 seeds have not replicated their success of last season, when they captured five WTA Tour titles, including Wimbledon and the end-of-season WTA Championships.
Since Indian Wells, Hsieh and Peng had lost three of their four first-round matches before Roland Garros and they stand just fifth on the WTA’s Road To Singapore leaderboard.
However, yesterday the Taiwanese-Chinese duo converted five of seven break-point chances to advance in just an hour on Court 3.
The victory set up a possible third-round clash with Taiwanese sisters Chan Yung-jan and Chan Hao-ching, who advanced to the second round on Thursday after a 7-5, 6-0 win over Japan’s Kurumi Nara and Anna Schmiedlova of Slovakia.
The Chan sisters converted seven of 17 break-point chances in 1 hour, 25 minutes to set up a second-round meeting with 15th-seeded US duo Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond.
On Thursday, all of the favorites progressed in the first round, led by WTA doubles world No. 2 Hsieh and world No. 1 Peng.
The cross-strait duo completed a 6-2, 6-4 first-round defeat of Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova and Samantha Stosur of Australia, winning four of their seven break-point chances in 1 hour, 10 minutes to claim their third victory in three meetings over their opponents.
Also advancing from the first round on Thursday were Italian second seeds and four-time Grand Slam champions Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci; No. 3 seeds and defending champions Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russia; No. 5 seeds Cara Black of Zimbabwe and India’s Sania Mirza; sixth-seeded US duo Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears; seventh-seeded Australian duo and three-time Grand Slam runners-up Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua; No. 12 seeds Kristina Mladenovic of France and Italy’s Flavia Pennetta; and No. 14 seeds Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic and Monica Niculescu of Romania.
There were two upsets — Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova and Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium ran out 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 winners over eighth-seeded German pairing Julia Goerges and Anna-Lena Groenefeld, while Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic were 6-4, 6-2 victors over No. 11 seeds Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan.
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Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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