Hsu Chieh-yu advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles competition at the Rio Open on Wednesday, while fellow Taiwanese Chan Chin-wei suffered a shock first-round defeat.
Hsu and her partner, Elitsa Kostova of Bulgaria, rallied from losing the first set to shock third-seeded British duo Jocelyn Rae and Anna Smith 3-6, 6-3, 12-10 in 1 hour, 20 minutes on the Brazilian clay courts.
Hsu and Kostova saved two of five break-point opportunities and converted three of 11 to set up a semi-final against either top seeds Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania and Maria Irigoyen of Argentina or Veronica Cepede Royg of Paraguay and Beatriz Garcia Vidagany of Spain, who were due to play their quarter-final yesterday.
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In the other half of the draw there was another shock as second seeds Chan and Raluca Olaru of Romania fell to a 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/4) defeat to Brazilian duo Beatriz Haddad Maia and Teliana Pereira in 1 hour 57 minutes.
Chan and Olaru saved six of nine break-point chances and converted three of seven, but it was not enough as they crashed out of the competition at the first hurdle.
In the singles, second seed Begu reached the quarter-finals, defeating Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US 6-2, 6-4.
Several other seeded players also advanced to the quarters at the WTA-ATP event, South America’s biggest clay-court tournament.
Fifth seed Johanna Larsson of Sweden defeated local hope Gabriela Ce 7-6 (7/4), 6-4; Germany’s Dinah Pfizenmaier beat fourth seed Madison Brengle 7-5, 0-6, 7-5; and Julia Glushko of Israel defeated Grace Min of the US 6-3, 6-1.
In first-round matches, sixth seed Anna Schmiedlova beat Alison van Uytvanck 6-3, 6-0 and Polona Hercog defeated An-Sophie Mestach 6-3, 6-4.
In the men’s draw, Austria’s Andreas Haider-Maurer defeated third seed Tommy Robredo of Spain 6-3, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals.
Unseeded Juan Monaco of Argentina also made the last eight, beating Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen 6-1, 7-6 (7/4).
Second seed David Ferrer was leading 7-6 (10/8), 2-0 when Thiemo de Bakker retired from their second-round match, while Joao Souza beat Blaz Rola 6-4, 6-7 (9/11), 6-4.
Top seed Rafael Nadal was due to face Pablo Carreno Busta yesterday.
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