Taiwanese players Chan Yung-jan and Lu Yen-hsun earned a rare double yesterday by becoming the first winners in the women’s and men’s singles at this year’s Wimbledon Championships.
Chan raced to victory over Switzerland’s Patty Schnyder in the women’s competition, while Lu proved too good for Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos.
The 20-year-old Chan beat her Swiss opponent 6-0, 6-2 to reach the second round of the women’s singles at the All England Club for the first time.
PHOTO: AFP
Chan started the contest in fine style, taking the first set in only 22 minutes to leave her experienced opponent — 11 years her senior and playing in her 56th Grand Slam — reeling.
The 59th-ranked Schnyder managed to hold her serve in the opening game of the second set but was unable to really trouble Chan during the Taiwanese player’s service games until the end of the contest.
Serving for the match Chan had to fight back from 0-40 down but Schnyder was unable to stop the world No. 84 from claiming the contest in only 49 minutes.
PHOTO: AFP
The Taiwanese hit 16 winners to Schnyder’s 11 but the one-time world No. 7 helped Chan no end by making 33 unforced errors, almost double the number the right-hander from Dongshih in Taichung County committed.
“I was aggressive but I was surprised she made so many mistakes. The last time I played against her I lost by a similar score,” Chan told AFP.
“This was a very important win for me. Last year when I played here it was my first tournament back after an injury and lost very easily,” she said. “But today I was really focused.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
Next up for Chan in round two is Nadia Petrova of Russia. The No. 12 seed made short work of her opponent, Tatjana Malek of Germany, in a 6-4, 6-3 win on Court 5.
safely through
Lu made it safely through to the second round of the men’s singles with a 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 win over Zeballos.
Lu’s win was his first opening round victory at Wimbledon since 2005.
Lu, 26, served 18 aces as he put away the Argentinian, in their first ever meeting, in exactly two hours to earn a second round tie against Poland’s Michal Przysiezny.
Zeballos and Lu were tied at 5-5 in the first set when the Argentine handed his opponent a crucial advantage by double-faulting at break point.
World No. 82 Lu held his serve comfortably throughout against a man ranked 38 places above him and Zeballos did not earn a single break point throughout the three sets.
Lu broke Zeballos in the opening game of the second set and in the seventh and ninth games of the third set to reach the second round of a Grand Slam tournament for only the sixth time in his career.
He has made the third round just once — at the Australian Open last year.
In other action Kim Clijsters made up for lost time as she demolished Maria Elena Camerin 6-0, 6-3 in her first singles match at Wimbledon for four years.
Clijsters was one of the leading players on the women’s tour when she retired in 2007 after becoming disillusioned with her constant battle with injury.
But the 27-year-old Belgian’s fierce competitive instincts couldn’t be subdued and, inspired by her participation in an exhibition match at Wimbledon to mark the opening of the Centre Court roof, she decided to dust off her racket last year.
It proved an astute choice as, in just her third tournament following her comeback, Clijsters won the last year’s US Open as a wildcard.
Now she is back at Wimbledon in her first competitive appearance since losing to compatriot Justine Henin in the 2006 semi-finals.
The eighth seed showed she had lost none of her grass-court cunning with a ruthless display against Italy’s Camerin to set up a second round meeting with Karolina Sprem of Croatia.
Clijsters admitted she had suffered a rare case of pre-match nerves but, after an ankle injury sidelined her for several weeks earlier this year, she was just happy to be back on any court — let alone one at Wimbledon.
“I didn’t even know if I was going to make it to Wimbledon. So I was relieved I was able to play in Eastbourne [last week],” she said.
frustrating
“There were definitely times where I was like, ‘Oh, man, here we go again with these injuries’. It was frustrating. I thought, ‘Was this all worth it?’” she said.
“I was actually pretty nervous, leaving the locker room and going out on court here again, the Belgian said. “To be on the new Court Number Two was interesting. I had to find my way to get there a little bit. Luckily the security guard knew where we were going, because I actually had no idea!”
“But it was nice. I was excited to be out there again. Overall I played a good match,” she said.
“I know that if I play my best tennis I can definitely compete with the top players here,” Clijsters said.
She was on top right from the start and quickly broke to underline her superiority.
Camerin had no answer as Clijsters took the first set without losing a single game.
The second set was tighter as Camerin finally showed more steel on her own service games.
But Clijsters had too much quality to be kept at bay for long and the former French and Australian Open finalist broke for a 5-3 lead before serving out the match.
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