Taiwanese sisters Chan Yung-jan and Chan Hao-ching cruised into the second round of the doubles at the Rogers Cup in Montreal, Canada, on Monday with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over German duo Julia Goerges and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
The Chan sisters saved two of three break-point chances and converted four of eight to complete the win in 1 hour, 3 minutes.
The Taiwanese sisters’ season has included a title in Eastbourne and a runners-up showing in Charleston, and they are 15th on the WTA Road to Singapore leaderboard. They next face a tough second-round clash with third seeds Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia.
The Taiwanese pair are in the top half of the draw with top-seeded Italian duo Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, while fellow Taiwanese Hsieh Su-wei and her partner, Peng Shuai of China, are in the bottom half of the draw seeded second.
The top four seeds all have a bye into the second round.
Another pair of sisters, the Pliskovas, were also victorious on Monday.
The Czech pairing were 6-4, 7-5 winners over New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic and Andreja Klepac of Slovenia in 1 hour, 11 minutes. They next face fourth seeds Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Sania Mirza of India, whom they lost to in their only previous meeting in Doha earlier this year.
In Monday’s other doubles match, France’s Caroline Garcia and Alicja Rosolska of Poland won four straight games from 4-2 down in the first set en route to a 6-4, 6-4 defeat of wild-cards Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium and Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.
In Monday’s singles action, Sabine Lisicki of Germany upset 13th-seeded 2012 French Open runner-up Errani 6-1, 7-5.
Errani is most comfortable on clay, while the 29th-ranked Lisicki likes the faster surfaces. Lisicki, the 2013 Wimbledon runner-up, hit the fastest recorded serve in WTA history 210.8kph last week at Stanford.
Errani was serving for the second set at 5-3 but let the lead slip away. Lisicki next plays Svetlana Kuznetsova or Madison Keys.
Dominika Cibulkova advanced with a hard-fought 6-1, 3-6, 6-0 victory over 17-year-old crowd favorite Francoise Abanda. The Slovakian righted herself in the third set and sealed the victory with an ace.
The 10th-seeded Cibulkova is to take on Britain’s Heather Watson in the next round, after the Briton edged Tereza Smitkova 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 in a battle of qualifiers.
US qualifier Shelby Rogers downed Ajla Tomljanovic 6-4, 7-6 (5) to set up a second-round meeting with the star attraction of this year’s event: fifth-seeded Canadian Eugenie Bouchard.
“I think it will be fun,” said Rogers, who beat Bouchard in three sets in a lower-level tournament in 2011 in Troy, Alabama. “Obviously the crowd is going to be for her and I’m the underdog. I think it’s kind of a fun story. There’s no pressure. I’m just going to go out, play my game, do my best and try to enjoy the moment as much as I can.”
Bouchard, who reached the Wimbledon final last month, is drawn to face defending champion Serena Williams of the US in the Montreal quarter-finals.
The world No. 1 said 20-year-old Bouchard will be a stiff test, if it happens.
“I think she has a really good chance,” Williams said. “She’s had a stellar year, to be honest. She’s done better than me in a lot of the tournaments.”
Wiliams, coming off a win on Sunday at Stanford, has won the Rogers Cup three times when it was held in Toronto, but has not played in Montreal since 2000, when she was forced to retire from the third set of the final with an injury.
No. 15 seed Lucie Safarova, Alize Cornet and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova also progressed on Monday. Safarova beat Sorena Cirstea 6-4, 6-2, and Cornet eliminated qualifier Lauren Davis 6-3, 7-5. Zahlavova Strycova ousted Roberta Vinci of Italy with a 7-5, 7-5 win. Magdalena Rybarikova was a 6-1, 6-3 winner over Alison Riske.
After Cibulkova’s win, a ceremony was held to induct Arantxa Sanchez Vicario into the tournament Hall of Fame.
The former world No. 1 reached the final of the Canadian Open, now called the Rogers Cup, five times between 1989 and 1998, winning twice in Montreal in 1992 and 1994.
“I know they were great finals,” the Barcelona native said. “I definitely had to beat Steffi [Graf] and Monica [Seles]. They were my biggest rivals at the moment.”
“I remember the crowd was always behind me. I feel like at home here in Montreal. As I say, it was one of my favorite tournaments to come and play,” Sanchez Vicario said.
In other news, former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic was back in the top 10 of the latest WTA rankings released on Monday.
Williams maintained her No. 1 one position ahead of China’s Li Na with her Stanford victory.
Serbia’s Ivanovic, who reached the quarter-finals in Stanford, moved up one place as former No.1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus dropped out of the top 10.
The other movers in the top 10 were German Angelique Kerber and Bouchard who swapped places in seventh and eighth respectively.
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