Chan Hao-ching (詹皓晴) and Chuang Chia-jung (莊佳容) were triumphant on an unprecedented day for Taiwanese tennis yesterday, while Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳) lost out in a super tiebreak in the third final featuring a Taiwanese player.
In the women’s doubles final at the Nurnberger Versicherungscup in Germany, second seeds Chan and Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain defeated fourth seeds Lara Arruabarrena of Spain and Raluca Olaru of Romania 6-4, 7-6 (7/5).
The Taiwanese-Spanish duo had an early break to take a 2-1 lead, before Chan was immediately broken to love in the following game as the fourth seeds evened things up.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The sequence was repeated in the seventh and eighth games as Olaru and Chan failed to hold their serves, before the decisive break in the ninth game when Arruabarrena was broken to love for a 5-4 lead and Medina Garrigues served it out.
Chan’s serve was broken again early the second set, but once again the second seeds broke back straight away. The rest of the set then went with serve to set up the tiebreak, in which Chan and Medina Garrigues rallied from 4-1 down to win six of the final seven points and complete the victory, Chan’s sixth WTA Tour doubles title.
In the final of the women’s doubles at the Internationaux de Strasbourg in France, top seeds Chuang and Liang Chen (梁辰) of China rallied from a set down to beat second seeds Nadia Kichenok of Ukraine and Zheng Saisai (鄭賽賽) of China 4-6, 6-4, 12-10.
The final began with Liang, Kichenok and Chuang all failing to hold their service games, with Zheng holding in the fourth game as the second seeds took a 3-1 lead. Chuang was broken again in the seventh game and although the cross-strait duo broke straight back, the second seeds served out the set 6-4.
It looked ominous for the top seeds when Chuang’s serve was broken early in the second set, but they rallied to break back in the fourth. Five straight breaks of serve saw Chuang and Liang edge the set 6-4, setting up the super tiebreak.
A Chuang volley at the net in the 17th point of the super tiebreak set up match point at 9-8, but she then hit a return long. Another Chuang volley at the net set up match point at 10-9, but Zheng volleyed a winner to level at 10-10.
Chuang and Liang yet again set up match point at 11-10 and this time Zheng hit her return long to hand the top seeds the victory, Chuang’s 21st WTA Tour doubles title.
In the men’s doubles final at the Geneva Open, Lu and Raven Klaasen of South Africa were edged 7-5, 4-6, 10-7 by second-seeded Colombian duo Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Both pairings broke serve twice, before the second seeds won the final three points of the super tiebreak to just edge Lu and Klaasen.
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