The reunited Chan sisters on Thursday advanced to the second round of the doubles at the BNP Paribas Open, while fellow Taiwanese Hsieh Su-wei set up a second-round singles clash with Spanish 27th seed Carla Suarez Navarro when her German opponent, Carina Witthoeft, retired with an injury.
The second-seeded Chan sisters, Hao-ching and Latisha, took just 65 minutes to see off the challenge of Latvian top-20 singles specialists Jelena Ostapenko and Anastasija Sevastova 6-2, 6-3 at Indian Wells in California.
The Taiwanese duo saved five of seven break points and converted five of 13, winning 56 of the 98 points contested.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Today is our first match [together] after a long time, but I think it was a great match,” Latisha Chan told the WTA Web site.
“It was pretty aggressive and strong, and then we were strong when we had to [be]. There were quite a few deuces and I’m glad that we made it at the end,” she added.
World doubles No. 1 Latisha Chan had been playing with Andrea Sestini Hlavackova of the Czech Republic so far this season, while Chan Hao-ching tasted success with Chinese partner Yang Zhaoxuan when they won the Dubai Championships last month.
“For now, the US swing, we’re going to play together and we’ll see how it goes,” Latisha Chan said.
“With Andi [Sestini Hlavackova] I’m returning on the ad court and now I’m on the deuce court, that’s a change again. So I’ll have to see how I adjust to it,” she said, adding that she prefers to play on the deuce side.
With a US$1 million bonus to be awarded to any player who can win both the singles and doubles titles this year, quite a few stars of the singles are competing in the doubles.
“It’s great that you can see the strong singles players join us to play the doubles and I think that’s a great opportunity for all the fans to see all of us on the doubles court,” Latisha Chan said.
“They just need maybe a few more matches, a few more opportunities to get into the doubles, then I’m sure [the] doubles can be really competitive,” she added.
The Chan sisters next face fellow Taiwanese Hsieh and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic, who edged Alicja Rosolska of Poland and Abigail Spears of the US 3-6, 6-4, 10-8 on Wednesday.
In the singles, qualifier Hsieh was leading 5-4 when Witthoeft retired.
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