Fourth-seed Ayumi Morita of Japan was pushed hard by Romania’s Madalina Gojnea before earning a 6-2, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4 win in the second round of the OEC Taipei Ladies Open yesterday.
The world No. 76 is in good form, having won an ITF tournament in Tokyo last month, and used her two-handed forehands and backhands to good effect against the 23-year-old from Ploesti.
Last year’s losing finalist will play China’s Wang Qiang in the next round after the 18-year-old defeated Zhang Ling of Hong Kong 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 in the first match of the day.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
The first set was remarkably even, with no breaks of serve, but Wang began to assert her dominance in the tiebreak. She immediately earned a mini-break, before serving an uncharacteristic double-fault to make it 2-1. Zhang failed to capitalize though, losing the next point on her serve and she paid the price as the world No. 332 went on to wrap up the set.
While Wang was able to maintain her impressive consistency in the next set, Zhang was broken in the first game and never really recovered.
Wang took the match without dropping a service game, landing an impressive 68 percent of her first serves and wrapping things up in typically efficient style on her first match-point.
Bojana Jovanovski pulled off a remarkable comeback to down Noppawan Lertcheewakarn 0-6, - 6-4, 6-1 in their match yesterday afternoon. Next up for the Serbian teenager is No. 5 seed Peng Shuai of China, who defeated compatriot Yan Zi 7-5, 6-1.
The two then paired up to defeat Indonesian duo Yayuk Basuki and Jessy Rompies 6-3, 6-2 in the doubles.
Fourth seeds Jarmila Groth and Tamarine Tanasugarn beat Yuliya Beygelzimer and Ksenia Lykina 6-3, 6-3, while second seeds Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Sania Mirza of India beat Taiwan’s Kao Shao-yuan and Hong Kong’s Zhang 6-3, 6-3.
The standout showdown in today’s action at the Taipei Arena is the singles quarter-final between Taiwan’s Chang Kai-chen, the seventh seed, and Groth, the top seed and champion in 2008.
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