Chan Yung-jan cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at Wimbledon on Wednesday, but fellow Taiwanese Hsieh Cheng-peng crashed out in the men’s doubles in London.
Third seeds Chan and Martina Hingis raced to a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Alize Cornet of France and Xenia Knoll of Switzerland in just 51 minutes on Court 16 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
The Taiwanese-Swiss duo saved the only break point they faced and converted five of eight, winning 55 of the 85 points contested to cruise into the second round at the third Grand Slam of the year.
Photo: EPA
In the men’s doubles, Hsieh and Max Schnur of the US fell to a 7-5, 6-1, 7-6 (7/5) defeat to Marcin Matkowski of Poland and Max Mirnyi of Belarus in 1 hour, 56 minutes.
In the women’s singles, when Petra Kvitova returned to competition after six months out recovering from a horrific knife attack, the idea of her winning a third Wimbledon title was talked of as a “fairy tale,” but there was no happy ending for the Czech, whose bid to repeat her triumphs in 2011 and 2014 ended with a second-round loss to world No. 95 Madison Brengle of the US.
Kvitova was listed as one of the tournament favorites, largely due to her triumph in Birmingham last month in her second tournament back after an attacker, in her home in the Czech Republic, left her with badly damaged tendons in her left hand, but the player, who needed four hours of surgery and spent three months without even touching a racket, says she never bought into the hype and conceded she had struggled physically in her 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 loss to Brengle.
“My body just didn’t really do the best, unfortunately, but I was really trying. I fight, but I could just not breathe and I was feeling a bit sick,” she said. “That sometimes happens. Unfortunately, it happened at Wimbledon, which is not nice. It was just tough for me to still have the energy to play my aggressive game.”
Kvitova said it proved the bookmakers had been wrong.
“I said before that I didn’t really feel the favorite of the tournament and I didn’t really think about the title here,” she said.
Now Kvitova is hoping to get back to her traditional preparation ahead of next month’s US Open.
“It was a difficult six months. It took a lot of energy, as well, and emotionally was tough, but now I should practice as I did before. I still probably will have an eye on the hand, but otherwise I think it’s getting better. I need to see the hand specialist once again,” the 27-year-old said.
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