The Chan sisters fell to a crushing semi-final defeat in the doubles at the Aegon Classic in Birmingham, England, on Saturday, while Madison Keys reached the final of the singles and moved into the world top 10 for the first time.
Taiwanese top seeds Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan fell to a 6-2, 6-1 defeat in just 58 minutes in their semi-final against unseeded Vania King and Alla Kudryavtseva on the grass courts at the Edgbaston Priory Club.
The American-Russian duo saved all three break points they faced and converted five of six, winning 51 of the 83 points contested, a crushing blow for the Taiwanese sisters just over a week before the start of Wimbledon.
King and Kudryavtseva were due to face Karolina Pliskova and Barbora Strycova in the final yesterday, after the Czech duo ousted British wild-cards Naomi Broady and Heather Watson 6-2, 6-4 in Saturday’s other semi-final.
Meanwhile, the Taiwanese sisters headed to the English south coast, where they are seeded second in the doubles tournament at the Aegon International in Eastbourne this week.
In the semi-finals of the singles, Keys completed a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/3) victory over Carla Suarez Navarro.
Keys is the first US woman to debut in the top 10 since Serena Williams in 1999 and she achieved the breakthrough in explosive style, managing to unleash such a powerful forehand on one point that she destroyed the net.
The 21-year-old dropped serve early on against her Spanish opponent, repaired the damage in a rousing second set, accelerated into a 4-2 final-set lead and then twice had to serve to save the match, before snatching the result in a tense tiebreak.
“I only heard about being in the top 10 from my coach and I didn’t want to think about it,” said Keys, who was due to face Strycova in yesterday’s singles final. “I was pretending I didn’t know. Much of the time I was concentrating on trying to get back into the match.”
Keys eventually achieved that with 12 explosive aces and many more service winners, although her ferociously struck forehands were mixed with many unforced errors, one of which was a drive which landed two feet up the backstop.
A warning about the damaging pace of her forehand came as early as the second point when Keys launched the ball into the net and watched it collapse. She claims once to have played a match in an earthquake and Saturday’s incident also caused a ripple, with ground staff jumping around and managing to attach another net within five minutes.
However, when Keys hit her targets she was unstoppable, creating the kind of devastation that prompted Serena Williams to describe her as a future world No. 1.
Keys had thought she might have a final against one of her best friends, Coco Vandeweghe, the American world No. 32.
Instead, Vandeweghe was worn down 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 by Strycova, the Czech who reached her second Birmingham final in three years.
It, too, was an utterly unpredictable match. Vandeweghe broke back bravely for 2-3 in the final set, whereupon she sat in her chair and burst into tears.
“I’m not really a crier, so I don’t know what that was about,” she said. “There’s been a lot of things going on this week, so I guess it was an accumulation of all of them.”
It was her last flourish, though. Strycova, still apparently fresh after an exasperating on-off week, increasingly proved calmly and consistently effective.
MALLORCA OPEN
AP, MALLORCA, Spain
Sixth seed Caroline Garcia advanced to her first grass-court final by beating Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 on Saturday at the Mallorca Open.
France’s Garcia had seven aces and won 84 percent of her first-service points against Flipkens, a 2013 Wimbledon semi-finalist.
In the final, Garcia was due to face Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia, who defeated second seed Jelena Jankovic 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the other semi-final.
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