Taiwanese sisters Chan Yung-jan and Chan Hao-ching fought back to claim their third WTA Tour doubles title as a partnership at the Thailand Open yesterday.
The top seeds defeated Shuko Aoyama of Japan and crowd favorite Tamarine Tanasugarn in the final in Pattaya, a victory which saw elder sister Yung-jan notch her 12th doubles title, while it was the fifth of younger sister Hao-ching’s career.
However, world No. 23 Yung-jan, who rose to as high as sixth in the world doubles rankings in 2008, and world No. 37 Hao-ching got off to a bad start in the first set, managing only a 42 percent success rate on their first serve compared with their opponents’ 78 percent.
Photo: AFP
Although the Taiwanese duo converted their only break-point opportunity, their opponents converted three of five to take the set 6-2.
The Taiwanese sisters then fought back immediately in the second, breaking their opponents’ first service game and holding their serve to take the set 6-4 and set up a super tiebreak to decide the champions.
The sisters then grabbed a 3-0 lead in the decider and maintained that momentum to complete a 10-3 victory and claim the title in 1 hour, 21 minutes.
Earlier in the singles final, Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia became the first player to win the Thailand Open three times by defeating Ajla Tomljanovic of Croatia, who was appearing in her first WTA Tour singles final.
Having triumphed in Thailand in 2011 and 2012, Hantuchova rallied to claim a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory in 2 hours, 7 minutes.
Although the Slovakian world No. 73 gave away the first set, she responded by breaking Tomljanovic in the first game of the second and although the Croatian broke straight back, Hantuchova secured three more breaks to tie the match.
Hantuchova then took charge of the decider by racing to a three-game lead and held on to claim her seventh WTA Tour singles title.
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