The Chan sisters survived a topsy-turvy doubles semi-final at the Aegon International in Eastbourne, England, yesterday, while Dominika Cibulkova fought back from a set down to oust top seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the rain-interrupted quarter-finals of the singles.
Taiwanese second seeds Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan won the first set 6-1 in just 23 minutes against fourth seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan on the grass courts at Devonshire Park, but then collapsed to a 1-6 second-set loss.
However, the Taiwanese sisters rallied in the super tiebreak to complete a 6-1, 1-6, 10-6 victory in 58 minutes to advance to today’s final and a shot at regaining the title they won in 2014.
Photo: Reuters
The second seeds saved three of five break points and converted both the break points they created, winning 47 of the 92 points contested.
The Taiwanese duo, who have won 11 WTA Tour doubles titles, face either Darija Durak of Croatia and Anastasia Rodionova of Australia or Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic in today’s final.
They were due to play their semi-final later yesterday.
In the quarter-finals of the singles, Slovakian 12th seed Cibulkova fought back to claim a 4-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-3 victory over Radwanska in their rain-affected quarter-final held over from Thursday.
In the other quarter-final held over from the previous evening, Czech 10th seed Karolina Pliskova completed a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 victory over Elena Vesnina of Russia.
On Thursday, qualifier Monica Puig had to dig deep to extend her fairy-tale run in the singles, battling past Kristina Mladenovic to move into the semi-finals.
Puig, who spent nearly three hours defeating French Open doubles champion Mladenovic 7-6 (8/6), 4-6, 6-3 said that mental strength was vital.
“The sports psychology part, my team takes care of. My coach and everybody on my team tries to get me mentally prepared for every single type of situation that I’m going to encounter on the court,” Puig said.
“The strength comes from within, but I think it just gets stronger due to the experience I have had in the past. I’ve had several matches where I have been the softer one and I have caved to the pressure, but now I have some of these matches under my belt [from difficult situations] and I have been able to pull it out,” she added.
Puig also made it to the Apia International final in Sydney in January from a qualifying start, facing two-time Grand Slam winner Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final. She ran out of steam and lost 6-0, 6-2.
On Thursday, Puig survived nine double faults and 10 aces from her opponent in a see-saw tear-up on the grass.
“We’re both putting so much pressure on each other’s serves,” she said.
“It was basically about me staying focused and doing what I had to do, which is be as aggressive as I could and just keep my head together,” she added.
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