Taiwanese duo Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan will be hoping their success in lower-tier tournaments translates to the top level as they prepare for the Thailand Open doubles final tonight in Pattaya, Thailand.
The duo won two tournaments together last year — their home Taipei Challenger tournament as well as the Aegeon International in the UK — while they also won the Shenzhen Open in China together in 2013.
They also made the final of the Pattaya event in 2012, losing to Australia’s Anastasia Rodionova and Sania Mirza of India.
They are set to face either fellow Taiwanese Chan Chin-wei and Xu Yifan of China or Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn and Shuko Aoyama of Japan in tonight’s final.
In the singles, two-time champion Daniela Hantuchova survived a scare from New Zealander Marina Erakovic to win their semi-final 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7/3), while as of press time, Puerto Rican Monica Puig had taken Croatian-Australian Ajla Tomljanovic to a third set after winning the second.
DIAMOND GAMES
AP, ANTWERP, Belgium
Third-seeded Andrea Petkovic of Germany advanced to the Diamond Games semi-finals on Friday after beating sixth-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 7-6 (7/2), 6-0 in a scrappy match featuring 11 breaks of serve.
Both players dropped serve four times each in a wobbly first set, but Petkovic tightened up her game in the second set.
Petkovic next faces Czech player Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, who broke German player Mona Barthel’s serve five times in a 6-2, 6-2 win.
Earlier, fifth-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain and eighth-seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic won their matches to set up a semi-final meeting.
Suarez Navarro saved 10 break points in a 6-3, 6-2 quarter-final win against former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy, who dropped her serve five times.
Pliskova defeated fourth-seeded countrywoman Lucie Safarova 7-6 (7/5), 6-3.
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