Taiwan’s Latisha Chan yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Sydney International, while US Open champion Sloane Stephens was bundled out of the first round of the singles.
Top seeds Chan, who previously competed on the WTA Tour using her Chinese name, Chan Yung-jan, and Andrea Sestini Hlavackova survived a second-set fightback by Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain and Renata Voracova of the Czech Republic to claim a 6-2, 4-6, 10-3 victory in 73 minutes.
The Taiwanese-Czech duo saved three of six break points and converted four of six, winning 64 of the 117 points contested, despite sending down six double faults at the final warm-up tournament before the Australian Open begins on Monday next week.
Photo: AFP
In the quarter-finals, doubles world No. 1 Chan and world No. 5 Sestini Hlavackova face either Andreja Klepac and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez or Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Vania King, who are scheduled to play their first-round match today.
Latisha Chan’s younger sister, Chan Hao-ching, and Katarina Srebotnik are also scheduled to begin their campaign on Court 5 today against Kiki Bertens and Johanna Larsson after Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai of China take on Shuko Aoyama and Yang Zhaoxuan.
In the singles, Stephens’ preparations for the Australian Open hit a speed bump when she was bundled out of the first round by Italy’s Camila Giorgi.
Stephens, who had not played since the Fed Cup final in November last year, looked rusty against the big-hitting Giorgi and made 35 unforced errors as she lost 6-3, 6-0 to the 26-year-old in just over an hour.
World No. 13 Stephens has not won a match since beating Madison Keys in the US Open final at Flushing Meadows in New York in September last year.
She lost both singles encounters in the Fed Cup against Belarus, lost twice at the WTA Elite Trophy event in Wuhai, China, and suffered first-round losses in two tournaments in China.
“I trained in Italy, my home, and felt so very good. I did six weeks of preparation. It was great. Very good,” said Giorgi, who missed the back end of last season with an elbow injury. “I made a few errors at the start, but then I played my game and it was good after that.”
Giorgi next takes on double Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, who went through when last year’s surprise Australian Open semi-finalist Mirjana Lucic-Baroni retired after losing the first set 6-1.
Another former Grand Slam champion also progressed, with Germany’s 2016 Melbourne Park title winner Angelique Kerber saving two match points to outlast Lucie Safarova 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (8/6), 6-2.
Sydney’s weather continued to wreak havoc, with Sunday’s extreme heat replaced by storms, with hail, lightning and rain all halting the clash between Kerber and Safarova.
“I think we had everything,” the German said afterward. “We had the heat, we had the rain, we had everything.”
Kerber’s victory sends her into a second-round clash with multiple Grand Slam champion Venus Williams.
Slovakian dynamo Dominika Cibulkova also reached the round-of-16 with a quickfire 6-3, 6-1 demolition of eighth seed Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia.
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