Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei put all the hubbub surrounding her doubles career behind her yesterday to stun third seed Casey Dellacqua and advance to the second round of the singles at the BMW Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur.
World No. 181 Hsieh, who was handed a wild card for the tournament, survived a second-set wobble following a break for rain to down the Australian world No. 35 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.
The Taiwanese saved four of nine break-point chances and converted six of seven to complete the victory in 1 hour, 46 minutes, despite producing five double faults.
It was the second time Hsieh had beaten Dellacqua in Kuala Lumpur after a 6-1, 7-5 victory in the round-of-16 in 2012.
It was a great performance by Hsieh a day after her former doubles partner Sania Mirza announced that she was ending her partnership with the Taiwanese after just four tournaments to team up with former world No. 1 Martina Hingis.
Later on Monday, Hsieh’s coach Paul McNamee announced that doubles world No. 6 Hsieh would be teaming up with Hingis’ former partner, Flavia Pennetta of Italy, the world No. 15.
Hsieh next faces world No. 132 Misa Eguchi in the second round after the Japanese rallied to defeat Belgium’s An-Sophie Mestach 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 in their first-round match yesterday.
In the doubles, Taiwan’s Chang Kai-chen and Zheng Saisai of China advanced to the quarter-finals after upsetting fourth-seeded Chinese duo Xu Yi-fan and Zhang Kai-lin 6-1, 6-4.
Chang and Zheng did not face a single break-point chance and converted three of six in 1 hour, 9 minutes to set up a quarter-final clash with another Chinese pairing, Yang Zhaoxuan and Zhu.
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