Chan Yung-jan kept her bid for a third consecutive WTA Tour doubles title on track in Strasbourg, France, yesterday, while fellow Taiwanese Chuang Chia-jung and Misaki Doi of Japan stunned the top seeds in the first round of the doubles in Nuremberg, Germany, on Tuesday.
Chan, who won the Mutua Madrid Open and Internazionali BNL d’Italia titles with Martina Hingis the past two weekends, has been reunited with younger sister Chan Hao-ching this week at the Internationaux de Strasbourg and the top seeds took 1 hour, 15 minutes to see off the challenge of Raluca Olaru of Romania and Olga Savchuk of Ukraine 6-1, 6-4 in their quarter-final.
The Chan sisters, eyeing a second title of the season after winning the Taiwan Open in February, saved all 12 break points they faced and converted three of nine to advance to a semi-final against qualifiers Chantal Skamlova of Slovakia and Eva Wacanno of the Netherlands.
In the first round late on Tuesday, the Chan sisters had cruised past American pairing Madison Brengle and Christina McHale 6-2, 6-1 in 60 minutes.
In the second round of the singles on Tuesday, Kristyna Pliskova ousted ninth seed and Olympic champion Monica Puig of Puerto Rico 6-2, 6-3 in 1 hour, 16 minutes.
The Czech’s previous match against Puig was at last year’s Australian Open, when she fired a record 31 aces, but still lost in three sets.
“I remember the match. It was a big one and I had a few match points,” Pliskova told the WTA Web site. “I expected a tough match today because she’s a good player.”
Also advancing to the quarter-finals were Spanish fourth seed Carla Suarez Navarro, Australian sixth seed Samantha Stosur and Chinese eighth seed Peng Shuai.
At the Nuernberger Versicherungscup on Tuesday, Chuang and Doi stunned top seeds Sania Mirza of India and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 7-5, 6-2 in the first round of the doubles.
The Taiwanese-Japanese duo saved six of eight break points and converted five of seven to win in 1 hour, 19 minutes and set up a quarter-final against qualifiers Mariana Duque-Marino of Colombia and Nao Hibino of Japan.
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