Chan Yung-jan became the fourth Taiwanese player to fall foul of the curse of Court 5 at Wimbledon on Saturday as she crashed out of the second round of the mixed doubles.
Chan and John Peers of Australia, who had earlier come through a grueling five-set men’s doubles second-round match with partner Britain’s Jamie Murray, fell to a 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (11/9) defeat to Croatian duo Marin Draganja and Ana Konjuh in 1 hour, 33 minutes.
Chan and Peers, the 14th seeds, converted the only break point they created and saved two of three, but it was not enough as the Croatians edged both tiebreaks and won 85 of the 169 points contested to end Chan’s participation at the All Engalnd Club in southwest London at the end of the first week.
Of the six Taiwanese who started the third Grand Slam of the year, just two made it to the second week — Hsieh Su-wei and Chan’s younger sister, Chan Hao-ching, in the women’s doubles — while the other four all met their end on Court 5 — Chuang Chia-jung and Chan Chin-wei in the women’s doubles on Wednesday and Lu Yen-hsun in the men’s doubles earlier on Saturday.
The good news for the survivors is that they have avoided Court 5 in the third round of the women’s doubles today, with Chan Hao-ching and Alison van Uytvanck of Belgium due to face fifth-seeded US duo Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears on Court 11, before seventh seeds Hsieh and Flavia Pennetta of Italy take on Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Coco Vandeweghe of the US on Court 8.
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