Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei may be a wily veteran with a deep bag of tricks, but her unusual array of two-handed shots and changes of pace were little match for the power of world No. 1 Serena Williams at the first Grand Slam event of the year yesterday.
Hsieh, the only Taiwanese player in either the men’s or women’s singles draw at the Australian Open this year, lost her second round singles match to Williams 6-1, 6-2 in exactly an hour.
Williams hit 26 winners to just nine for Hsieh and won 85 percent of the points when she got her first serve in, compared to only 39 percent for Hsieh.
Photo: EPA
The Taiwanese veteran, who turned 30 on Jan. 4, is known for playing wide-angled shots at different speeds and keeping opponents on the move, but she was not precise enough when she had opportunities to put Williams under pressure.
“She’s definitely a tricky opponent and I think it was a good matchup for me to play someone like that who can hit any shot at anytime anywhere on the court. I kind of needed that,” Williams said of her opponent.
Hsieh, currently ranked 90th in the world in singles, set up the encounter against the world’s top women’s singles player with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory in the first round over Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia on Monday.
Photo: EPA
On the men’s side, Taiwanese stalwart Lu Yen-hsun had his streak of 30 consecutive Grand Slam singles appearances broken at the Australian Open this year when he was forced to pull out with an elbow injury.
According to his official Web site, he was scheduled to undergo an operation in Melbourne to have bone chips in his elbow removed, and he hopes to return to the court in May with an eye to playing in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August.
It was also a forgettable day for Taiwanese players in the doubles.
In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung and Olga Govortsova of Belarus were ousted 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 by 13th seeds Julia Goerges of Germany and Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic in 1 hour, 37 minutes on Court 19.
In the following match on the same court, Taiwanese duo Hsieh Cheng-peng and Yang Tsung-hua fell to a 6-1, 7-5 defeat to Daniel Nestor of Canada and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic in two minutes short of an hour in the men’s doubles.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic had a third-set tussle with French teenager Quentin Halys before winning their night match 6-1, 6-2, 7-6 (7/3), joining Williams and Roger Federer in the next stage.
Federer, who is trying to extend his record number of Grand Slam crowns to 18, dismantled his 35th-ranked practice partner Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-3, 7-5, 6-1.
The all-time Grand Slam king came unstuck in the third round last year, when he was shocked by Andreas Seppi, and he is wary of another upset with Grigor “Baby Fed” Dimitrov up next.
“It’s the least I expect to be in the third round of a Slam, obviously, so I’m pumped up, playing well, feeling good,” Federer said. “But there’s always a danger, you know. Like last year, the third round was the end for me, so I hope to go further this time.”
Separately, a senior anti-corruption official told reporters that match-fixing was commonplace in tennis’ lower levels and criticized the “opaque and secretive” Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU), which is tasked with finding cheats.
Chris Eaton, director of integrity at the International Centre for Sport Security in Doha, was speaking after a report said several players suspected of being serial match-fixers had never been punished.
“Integrity is by definition open and transparent. The TIU is neither... By operating in the shadows, they fail to practice what they preach,” he said, calling for a “new independent and integrated integrity model.”
Petra Kvitova became the latest women’s top-10 player to fall, joining Simona Halep and Venus Williams on the sidelines when she was shocked 6-4, 6-4 by Australian giant-killer Daria Gavrilova.
In a positive evening for the hosts, the combustible Nick Kyrgios overcame a mix-up with his shorts to beat Pablo Cuevas and set up a showdown with world number six Tomas Berdych.
Agnieszka Radwanska’s sky-high confidence took another leap upwards when she halted Eugenie Bouchard, back in form after suffering concussion at the US Open, 6-4, 6-2.
On court earlier was five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova, who had little difficulty dispatching 105th-ranked Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2, 6-1.
Japanese seventh seed Kei Nishikori beat his close friend Austin Krajicek 6-3, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 as he pressed his bid for a first Grand Slam title.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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