The Chan sisters’ bid for a spot in the season-ending WTA Finals suffered a setback yesterday when the Taiwanese sixth seeds were routed in the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Wuhan Open.
Chan Hao-ching and Latisha Chan, who claimed their fourth title of the season in Osaka, Japan, last week, fell to a 6-1, 6-1 defeat to fourth seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Demi Schuurs in just 55 minutes on the hard courts in China.
The German-Dutch duo saved two of the three break points they faced and converted six of 11 to advance to the semi-finals and boost their chance of claiming a spot at the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China, next month.
Photo: AFP
Groenefeld and Schuurs are currently eighth in the “Race to Shenzhen” rankings with 3,560 points, while the Chan sisters are fifth on 4,145.
However, despite the heavy defeat, the Chans’ bid was boosted earlier when seventh seeds Nicole Melichar of the US and Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic, 10th with 3,215 ranking points, fell to a 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 10-6 loss to Makota Ninomiya of Japan and Yang Zhaoxuan of China in their quarter-final.
The WTA Finals take place from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3 and feature this season’s top eight singles players and doubles teams.
In the singles, Ashleigh Barty marched into her sixth semi-final of the season, describing her victory over Petra Martic as one of the best matches she has played.
The world No. 1 impressed in an entertaining quarter-final that saw her fire 39 winners en route to a 7-6 (8/6), 3-6, 6-3 win against Martic.
Barty now gets a shot at revenge when she takes on powerful Belarussian Aryna Sabalenka today in a rematch of their Wuhan semi-final last year.
Against Martic, Barty fell behind early in the first and third sets, but retaliated with some creative shot-making to reach the last four for a third year in a row.
“I think that was a very, very high-quality match. I think that was probably one of the better matches that I’ve played in recent times,” the reigning French Open champion said.
“It could have gone either way. I was happy how I was able to fight in the end, put a lot of pressure on her in a lot of those service games in the third,” she said.
Martic, the Croatian world No. 22, had not lost a three-setter since March, but saw her streak of 16 on the trot snapped by the relentless Barty.
“She’s one of the best movers on the Tour,” Barty said of Martic. “That [streak] doesn’t surprise me.”
Sabalenka, the defending champion and seeded nine this week, overcame a second-set dip to halt the inspired run of Kazakh wild-card Elena Rybakina 6-3, 1-6, 6-1.
The 21-year-old is tied at 2-2 head-to-head with Barty.
Sabalenka improved her strong career record on Chinese courts to 27 wins against just six losses — including 10 victories in a row in Wuhan.
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