The Chan sisters yesterday retained the Taiwan Open doubles title in front of their home fans at the Taipei Arena, while top seed Elina Svitolina claimed the singles title.
Taiwanese Chan Hao-ching (詹皓晴) and Chan Yung-jan (詹詠然) defeated second seeds Lucie Hradecka and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-2 in 71 minutes in the doubles final to retain the title they won in Kaohsiung last year.
“It is wonderful to take this victory and to retain our WTA Taiwan Open title in front of our home fans here in Taipei,” Chan Hao-ching said.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
“We really wanted to play well and win this match, because there is some pressure on us with about 60 of our family members, relatives and friends who came to the match to watch us, many of them from central Taiwan,” she said.
Chan Yung-jan said the turning point in the match was when they called a time-out trailing 3-4 in the first set.
“It was level at 3-3, then they broke our serve. At that point we called a time-out. We wanted to discuss the game with our coach, who is our father [Chan Yuan-liang (詹元良)]... As we were behind, we decided just to use the rest of the set as a practice match ... but with this different approach our play became more aggressive and it resulted in the turnaround to take the first set,” Chan Yung-jan said.
After edging the closely fought opening set, the top seeds took control in the second, hitting some blistering returns to overwhelm the Czech duo and claim their first WTA Tour doubles title of the season.
The Taiwanese pairing saved seven of eight break points and converted four of nine, winning 60 of the 104 points contested.
“This is a great experience, to win the doubles championship, it is very meaningful for it to stay here in Taiwan,” Chan Hao-ching said.
“I think we play well together and our pairing hopefully can go a long way and win more titles,” Chan Yung-jan said. “We are also members of the Taiwan national tennis team and we will definitely play at the Universiade in Taipei this year, as it is an honor to represent your country and to play for your home fans.”
In the singles final earlier, Ukraine’s Svitolina took just 68 minutes to see off the challenge of China’s Peng Shuai (彭帥), converting six of 10 break points to complete a convincing 6-3, 6-2 victory, despite suffering flu-like symptoms in the past week.
“I played very good, and I was very solid mentally and physically,” the world No. 13 said. “Although I was affected by the flu, I did very well this week and did not struggle too much, and got through by playing good games.”
Much of the post-match discussion was whether Peng’s choice of evening meal on a night out with her former doubles partner could have affected her performance.
“Yes, [Taiwanese player] Hsieh [Su-wei (謝淑薇)] and I went out for spicy hot pot last night. [The restaurant] was closed during the Lunar New Year holiday and it only reopened yesterday... she and I are good friends, so there is nothing unusual about that,” Peng said.
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