Top seeds Chan Yung-jan and Martina Hingis yesterday took just 43 minutes to see off the challenge of sixth seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Kveta Peschke 6-1, 6-0.
The Taiwanese-Swiss duo did not face a single break point and converted five of six, winning 51 of the 66 points contested.
It was the sixth time this year that the pairings have clashed, with Chan and Hingis improving their record over the German-Czech duo to 4-2.
In the semi-finals, the top seeds face third seeds Sania Mirza and Peng Shuai after the Indian-Chinese duo rallied from a set down to edge seventh seeds Alicja Rosolska of Poland and Abigail Spears of the US 3-6, 6-3, 10-5 in 1 hour, 15 minutes.
ATP TOUR
At the ATP Tour’s Chengdu Open, Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun took just 53 minutes to see off Russian fourth seed and US Open quarter-finalist Andrey Rublev 6-2, 6-1 in the second round of the singles.
Three weeks after defeating Bulgarian world No. 8 Grigor Dimitrov and Belgian world No. 12 David Goffin at the US Open on his way to a quarter-final defeat to eventual champion Rafael Nadal, the 19-year-old Russian world No. 37 was blown away by the Taiwanese world No. 63, who saved both break points he faced and converted four of 12, winning 57 of the 91 points contested.
In the quarter-finals Lu faces world No. 113 Marcos Baghdatis, who rallied from a set down to oust German world No. 66 Peter Gojowczyk 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 in 1 hour, 46 minutes.
Lu has a 1-1 career record against the Cypriot — losing in Kuala Lumpur in 2009, before avenging that defeat in Los Angeles in 2011.
Lu returned to the court later yesterday with partner Divij Sharan in the quarter-finals of the doubles.
The Taiwanese-Indian duo defeated fourth seeds Dominic Inglot of Britain and Daniel Nestor of Canada 6-3, 6-3 in 60 minutes to advance to the semi-finals.
Yu Yao-hsing on Tuesday nabbed Taiwan’s only goal in the final round of qualifiers for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, as they fell 3-1 to Sri Lanka at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Early goals from Sri Lanka in the first half left Taiwan struggling to get on the board, and Christopher Tiao’s own goal at 53 minutes sealed the team’s fate in the third round of qualifiers. While acknowledging that the defeat, Taiwan’s sixth in Group D, was disappointing, head coach Matt Ross said he saw reasons to stay positive about the team’s development. “There were lots of positive signs in terms of the
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