Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan and Martina Hingis of Switzerland cruised into the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Wuhan Open yesterday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei gave top seed Kristyna Pliskova a fright in the first round of the singles at the Tashkent Open.
Chan and Hingis took just 57 minutes to complete a 6-1, 6-2 second-round victory over Raquel Atawo of the US and Darija Jurak of Croatia.
The top seeds saved two of three break points and converted five of seven, winning 53 of the 86 points contested to advance to the quarter-finals
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
It was not such a good day for Chan Yung-jan’s younger sister, Chan Hao-ching, after she and Zhang Shuai of China fell to a 6-4, 6-4 defeat to Makoto Ninomiya of Japan and Renata Voracova of the Czech Republic in the first round.
Ninomiya and Voracova saved one of the two break points they faced and converted three of 11 to advance to a second-round clash with sixth seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic, with the winners due to face Chan Yung-jan and Hingis in the quarter-finals.
Chuang Chia-jung also crashed out when the Taiwanese and Liang Chen of China fell to a 6-1, 6-4 first-round defeat to Andreja Klepac of Slovenia and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain in 65 minutes.
In Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Hsieh gave Pliskova a scare when she rallied from a set down, before eventually falling to a 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (4/7), 6-4 defeat in 2 hours, 23 minutes.
On the ATP World Tour, Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun advanced to the second round of the Chengdu Open with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Swedish wild-card Mikael Ymer in 66 minutes.
Lu mixed eight aces with four double faults to set up a second-round match against Russian fourth seed Andrey Rublev.
Luka Doncic on Monday scored 36 points as the in-form Los Angeles Lakers powered to their sixth straight victory with a 100-92 defeat of the Houston Rockets. A crucial showdown between the third and fourth-ranked NBA Western Conference teams ended with the Lakers pulling away in the final minute of the fourth quarter to claim an impressive win on the road. The victory gives the Lakers (43-25) a valuable cushion over the Rockets (41-26) as they jostle for post-season positions in the West. Doncic was once again instrumental in dragging the Lakers over the line while a hard-nosed defensive effort
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