Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the second round of the women’s doubles at the All England Club, while Caroline Wozniacki suffered fresh Wimbledon woe as the world No. 2 suffered a shock 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 defeat to Ekaterina Makarova in the second round of the singles before telling the Russian: “You won’t go far.”
Hsieh and Lucie Hradecka took just 63 minutes to complete a 6-3, 6-3 victory over British duo Katie Boulter and Katie Swan.
The 14th seeds saved four of five break points and converted four of six, winning 67 of the 107 points contested.
Photo: EPA
The Taiwanese-Czech duo next face a second-round clash with either Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Belarussian Aryna Sabalenka, who Hsieh partnered in Eastbourne last week, or Danielle Collins of the US and Jessica Moore of Australia.
In the singles, Wozniacki, plagued by an invasion of flying ants during the Court One clash, saved five match points, but has now failed to get past the round-of-16 in 12 visits to the All England Club.
It was a bitter defeat for the 27-year-old Dane, who was expected to challenge for the Wimbledon title after winning her maiden Grand Slam crown at the Australian Open in January.
Wozniacki then told Makarova not to get too optimistic about making a deep run at the All England Club, despite the Russian winning the women’s doubles title last year.
“I think she played above her level and really raised it and got a little lucky, and played well when she needed to,” said Wozniacki, who also lost to the 30-year-old in the second round of the US Open last year.
Wozniacki had won all of their seven previous meetings up to that point.
“I don’t know that she would be able to keep up this level for the rest of the tournament,” she added.
Russian world No. 35 Makarova, who next faces Czech world No. 66 Lucie Safarova, shrugged off Wozniacki’s unflattering summary of her chances.
“I don’t know what to say. Yeah, maybe I was lucky today. Good for me. Thank God,” Makarova told WTA Insider.
Flying ants also did their best to darken Wozniacki’s mood.
The former world No. 1 asked the umpire if there was something that could be sprayed to keep the bugs away.
“They’re in my mouth, and in my hair and everywhere — we need to do something. Is there a spray?” she said. “I want to be here to focus on tennis, not eating bugs.”
Wozniacki arrived in southwest London in good form on grass following her victory in Eastbourne last week, but once again she exits Wimbledon in embarrassing style, leaving the grass-court Grand Slam as the only one of the four majors at which she has never reached the quarter-finals.
Makarova said in the aftermath of her victory that she had tried not to think about the match points slipping away.
“I couldn’t win with a lot of match points, but I kept fighting and playing an aggressive game, and finally it worked,” said Makarova, who had led 5-1 in the final set.
“I was really nervous, because you need to win this point. When it was 5-5, I started thinking about those match points on my serve at 40-0, but I told myself: ‘No, you are not going to lose this match.’ I forgot it and started over,” she added.
Makarova, playing in her 44th consecutive Grand Slam, is hoping to emulate her run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals four years ago when she was beaten by Safarova.
The Russian has twice made the semi-finals at a Grand Slam — both at the US Open in 2014 and 2015.
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