Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan made an encouraging start to the mixed doubles competition at the Australian Open by teaming up with Australian Paul Hanley to demolish Alexandra Dulgheru and Michael Kohlmann 6-2, 6-0 in their first-round match yesterday.
It took Chan and Hanley only 45 minutes to chalk up the win against their Romanian and German opponents, and so dominant were they that they only faced two break points in the entire contest, winning 72 percent of their service points as opposed to 40 percent by Dulgheru and Kohlmann.
All three Taiwanese players in the women’s doubles tournament are in action today, with Chuang Chia-jung and Hsieh Su-wei taking on Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Switzerland’s Patty Schnyder, while Chan and Agnieszka Radwanska face 12th-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and Maria Kirilenko of Russia in third-round matches.
Following their win over Sofia Arvidsson and Johanna Larsson in the previous round, Chan explained how her new partnership with Radwanska was developing.
“We’re both experienced doubles players, which makes it easier,” she said of taking to the courts with the Pole for the first time. “Someone might be a good singles player, but if they don’t play doubles, maybe [starting a new partnership] is more of a problem.”
“We both know we can hit the ball well ... we understand our habits, how to cover each other. Sometimes it takes two or three tournaments [for a new doubles partnership to gel], sometimes it’s immediate, it’s been pretty fast,” she said. “We’ve known each other for a long time, so it’s easy to talk.”
Meanwhile, Chuang has a busy day in prospect as she and Dick Norman of Belgium face Barbora Zahlavova Strycova and Oliver Marach in the second round of the mixed doubles.
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