Taiwanese sisters Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan won their opening match at the season-ending BNP Paribas WTA Finals in Singapore yesterday.
The No. 3 seeds defeated fifth seeds Caroline Garcia of France and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) in a hard-fought opening match in the White Group at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The Chan sisters saved five of eight break points and converted four of nine, winning 82 of the 155 points contested to complete the victory in 1 hour, 49 minutes.
Photo: Reuters
“Tough first round, but I guess it’s tough here every round,” Chan Yung-jan said on Facebook.
The Taiwanese duo’s five WTA Tour doubles titles makes them the second-most successful pair of sisters on the tour after Venus and Serena Williams, who have won 21 titles.
Next up at 1pm today the Chan sisters are due to face second seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US and Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic, who won their first round-robin White Group match 6-3, 7-6 (7/1) against eighth-seeded Spanish pairing Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro.
“It felt great to be out there,” Mattek-Sands told the WTA Tour Web site after the duo’s opening match.
“We were excited to kick-start the championships here as the first match up. All of the teams are good here — it’s the top eight and it’s the best of the best, so we’re really happy with how we played,” the American said.
In the singles, fast-rising Muguruza beat Safarova in straight sets to prove she is a force to be reckoned with at the WTA Finals and avenge her defeat at Roland Garros.
Muguruza, the freshly anointed world No. 3 and the second seed in Singapore, overpowered the Czech in the first set and edged the second to take it 6-3, 7-6 (7/4).
The powerful Spaniard converted two break points in the first set and recovered from an early break of her own service in the second to get it back on serve at 3-3.
Safarova, the world No. 9, fought off four break points to make it 4-4 before the set went to a tiebreak — which Muguruza won 7/4 to wrap up the match in just under two hours.
Both players were Grand Slam runners-up this year to Serena Williams — Muguruza at Wimbledon and Safarova at Roland Garros, where she beat the Spaniard in straight sets in the quarter-finals.
“In Roland Garros she played an amazing match. I think today I played a very good match also,” Muguruza said.
“I just wanted so much to win. I was fighting and you know, just very concentrated,” she said.
Muguruza has risen up the rankings after reaching the Wuhan Open final and winning in Beijing this month, reaching a career high of third in the latest listings.
Muguruza and Safarova are in the White Group together with Angelique Kerber of Germany and Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.
Sixth seed Kerber defeated fourth seed Kvitova 6-2, 7-6 (7/3) in the late match last night.
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