Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Sania Mirza reached the first WTA Tour doubles final of their partnership at the Qatar Total Open on Friday.
Hsieh and Mirza won the semi-final showdown with Hsieh’s compatriot Chan Hao-ching and partner Casey Dellacqua of Australia 6-2, 6-4 to advance to yesterday’s final.
The top seeds saved the only break-point chance they faced in the opening set, while converting two of five to take the first set 6-2.
Photo: Reuters
The match then went with serve until the seventh game of the second set, with world No. 5 Mirza and world No. 6 Hsieh converting their only break-point opportunity to take a 4-3 lead, before holding their service games to complete the victory in 1 hour, 1 minute on Centre Court.
Hsieh was eyeing her 18th doubles title, while Mirza was looking for No. 24 in yesterday’s final against fourth-seeded American duo Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears, who defeated second-seeded Russian duo Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in Friday’s earlier semi-final on Court 1.
Kops-Jones and Spears saved four of five break-point chances and converted four of six to complete a 6-4, 6-1 victory in 1 hour, 3 minutes.
In the singles, Victoria Azarenka defeated Venus Williams for the first time, rallying for a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory to reach the final.
A two-time champion in Doha, Azarenka made adjustments in the second set and took a 5-1 lead in the third. Azarenka had 36 winners in a match watched by David Beckham.
The 48th-ranked Azarenka was to play No. 15 Lucie Safarova in the final yesterday. She is undefeated in six matches against the Czech player, who beat Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 6-2 in the other semi-final.
Abierto Mexicano
Reuters, MEXICO CITY
A stomach virus caused world No. 2 Maria Sharapova to pull out of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel just hours before her semi-final on Friday.
“I’m really sorry to have to withdraw,” the top-seeded Russian said on her Web site.
“I had a great start to the event and was hoping I could recover in time for tonight’s match, but unfortunately it was not enough time,” she said.
“I want to thank the tournament for organizing such a great event and most importantly the fans who were so passionate during all my matches,” she added.
In the other semi-final, Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky defeated Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria, 6-2, 6-4.
In the men’s semi-finals, Japan’s Kei Nishikori beat Kevin Anderson of South Africa 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, while Spain’s David Ferrer downed Ryan Harrison of the US 4-6, 6-0, 6-0.
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