Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan was defeated by Karolina Pliskova yesterday, as the Czech third seed reached the Wimbledon fourth round for the second successive year with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win.
Pliskova is to face either Anett Kontaveit, the 20th seed from Estonia, or fellow Czech Karolina Muchova for a place in the quarter-finals.
Pliskova fired 14 aces and 42 winners in her Court One victory, while Hsieh took 40 percent of break points and 33 winners in the loss.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Hsieh went into the match on a mini hot streak of her own.
“[Pliskova] just won Eastbourne, so she’s definitely a strong opponent,” Hsieh said in an interview before the match. “She can make unlimited aces.”
As for studying her opponents’ styles, Hsieh said she hands over those duties to her support team.
“I just relax and leave this to my boyfriend and my coach,” she said. “They do whatever they want and if they want to give me some advice, I take it — most of the time. Sometimes if they forget, it’s OK, I just do whatever I want on the court.”
Hsieh last year reached the fourth round — her best performance at Wimbledon — and won the women’s doubles title in 2013 with China’s Peng Shuai.
“I have a lot of good memories here, because I won the doubles, which was a dream come true,” Hsieh said.
This time she has teamed up with Barbora Strycova, and the emphasis is on fun.
“Me and Barbora, we hope that we can win a Grand Slam title, but we don’t know which one,” she said. “So we will try our best and try to enjoy the tennis as well, because when we don’t think too much, we can play a lot of fun stuff on the court.”
Earlier yesterday, China’s Zhang Shuai made the fourth round for the first time, coming back from 0-4 down in the opening set to beat former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, who failed to see eye-to-eye with the Hawk-Eye line call review system.
World No. 60 Zhang is the first Chinese woman since Peng in 2015 to reach the second week at the All England Club thanks to her 6-4, 6-2 win over the 14th seeded Dane.
Before this year, the 30-year-old had never won a main draw match at Wimbledon in five attempts.
She fired 26 winners against just eight for Wozniacki and goes on to face either Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland or Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska.
Wozniacki has never made it past the fourth round at Wimbledon.
Her affection for the tournament would not have been helped by her unhappiness at what she claimed to be a number of poor calls by the Hawk-Eye review system.
“You trust that it tells you the right thing. Sometimes you do see the balls a little differently than what the Hawk-Eye is,” the 28-year-old said.
Wozniacki said that even the umpire believed there might have been a problem with the technology.
“He saw it differently and the linesmen saw it differently as well, but then again, there’s nothing you can do about it,” she said.
On Thursday, Rafael Nadal defeated his bete noire Nick Kyrgios in an engrossing, but bad-tempered grudge match.
The 33-year-old Spaniard came through in four sets 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/3) that saw fiery, but talented Australian Kyrgios receive a warning for unsportsmanlike behavior after a running argument with the umpire, while twice serving underarm.
Nadal’s pleasure was evident when he sealed the match against a man he had accused of lacking respect for the sport as he fist-pumped and jumped in the air yelling to his camp seated on Centre Court.
“I was aware of everything,” said Nadal, who won his 50th match at Wimbledon. “I was just next to him so I don’t want to comment on this, but potentially he is a Grand Slam winner.”
Eight-time champion Roger Federer had no such problems as he eased into the third round, beating British wild-card Jay Clarke 6-1, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2 to equal US legend Jimmy Connors’ record of 17 appearances in the last 32.
Federer and Nadal’s half of the draw lost two of the potentially more awkward customers in big-serving duo John Isner and Marin Cilic.
Ninth seed Isner, who last year played in the epic semi-final with Kevin Anderson that lasted more than six hours, fell in five sets to unseeded Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in just more than three hours.
Cilic, the 13th seed and finalist in 2017, lost in straight sets to Portugal’s Joao Sousa, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.
On the women’s side, there is to be a new name adorning the trophy, as defending champion Angelique Kerber went out in three sets to lucky loser Lauren Davis 2-6, 6-2, 6-1.
Kerber looked in control after the first set, but once she went 3-2 down in the second, Davis — ranked outside the top 250 earlier this year — gained in confidence.
There was a scare for seven-time champion Serena Williams, who dropped the first set against 18-year-old Slovenian qualifier Kaja Juvan before prevailing 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.
“It brings the best out of me the pressure,” Williams said. “I play best when I am down sometimes. I am a fighter, I never give up.”
Home fans’ appetites were sated at the end of the day when Williams’ mixed doubles partner and former world No. 1 Andy Murray made a victorious return after “life-changing hip surgery.”
The 32-year-old Scotsman and his French partner, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, gelled as the match went on, winning in four sets over Marius Copil and Ugo Humbert, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-0.
In the first round of the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic took just 59 minutes to complete a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Mona Barthel of Germany and Xenia Knoll of Switzerland.
The third seeds, who last month won the Nature Valley Classic title in Birmingham, their third of the season after victories in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Madrid, failed to save the only break point they faced, but converted five of 13, winning 88 percent of points on their second serve to set up a second-round clash with Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia and Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland, who defeated US duo Asia Muhammad and Taylor Townsend 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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