Hsieh Su-wei flew the flag for Taiwan in a surprise 6-2, 6-7(3), 7-5 defeat of France’s Kristina Mladenovic on the first day of the OEC Taipei Ladies Open yesterday.
Although better-known for her doubles prowess, the 24-year-old Kaohsiung-born player still proved too good for her French opponent, who reached the semi-finals of last year’s event.
Although she may progress further in the doubles — in which she is paired with Indian star Sania Mirza as second seeds — Hsieh showed signs of the form that took her to the fourth round of the Australian Open singles in 2008.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Next up for Hsieh, who overcame a ranking difference of more than 100 places to down her opponent, is an all Taiwanese clash against either Chang Kai-chen or Chuang Chia-jung.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese world No. 534 Chan Chin-wei gave eighth seed Junri Namigata of Japan a run for her money before losing in three sets. The 25-year-old wild card from Kaohsiung didn’t look like a player ranked nearly 400 places below her opponent and battled to the end in a close contest.
Namigata made a slow start as Chan broke her in the first game and won the next without dropping a point. The 28-year-old from Saitama then found her feet, breaking back to level at 3-3. She broke Chan again to go 5-3 up before wrapping up the set in the next game.
The third game of the second set proved to be a marathon, going to six deuces before Chan conjured up a forehand winner to hold serve and take a 2-1 lead. An exchange of breaks left Chan 4-3 ahead before she broke the world No. 135 again to take the set 6-4.
In the deciding set, Chan found herself 2-5 down before giving the Japanese a fright by winning the next two games.
In the 10th game Namigata put a backhand into the net on her first match-point before sending a forehand long on the second to make it deuce. It was third time lucky for the 1.7m right-hander though, as a Chan backhand landed wide on the next match point to hand Namigata the set, 6-4, and with it the match.
In the other singles matches Elena Bogdan of Romania defeated Taiwan’s Yi Chen 7-6(9), 6-1 and Yuliya Beygelzimer of Ukraine beat Thailand’s Nudnida Luangnam 6-2, 6-1.
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