Hsu Chieh-yu’s dreams of making a first appearance at a WTA Tour doubles final ended at the Rio Open on Friday as the Taiwanese and her partner, Elitsa Kostova of Bulgaria, fell to the top seeds in the semi-finals.
Hsu and Kostova fell to a comprehensive 6-2, 6-2 defeat to Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania and Maria Irigoyen of Argentina in 56 minutes, creating only one break-point opportunity, while the top seeds converted five of 13.
Begu and Irigoyen face Ysaline Bonaventure of Belgium and Rebecca Peterson of Sweden in the final after their semi-final opponents, Brazilian duo Beatriz Haddad Maia and Teliana Pereira, pulled out of their semi due to injury.
Photo: EPA
In the men’s singles, top seed Rafael Nadal overcame his stiffest test so far in his first clay-court tournament of the season, defeating sixth seed Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay 4-6, 7-5, 6-0 to reach the semi-finals.
The match ended at 3:21am yesterday — more than 14 hours after the tournament opened play on Friday, as organizers scheduled all five top matches on center court and they all went to three sets.
It was not a record. The ATP said that one non-Grand Slam match ended slightly later — 3:24am in Tokyo in 2006.
Nadal was not happy at being kept up so late.
“No tennis tournament should end at this time,” he said. “It’s tough for the players, but maybe worse for the fans. It very bad on the part of the ATP. It’s not the tournament’s fault. It was the ATP that didn’t want to reschedule a match. If it’s a Grand Slam you have a day to rest. It seems like a terrible error to me.”
Nadal had about 16 hours to rest before he was due to face fourth seed Fabio Fognini in yesterday’s semi-finals.
In a marathon, Fognini of Italy defeated Federico Delbonis of Argentina 6-4, 6-7 (10/12), 7-6 (11/9).
Nadal said beforehand that he would have to step up his game against Cuevas, and he did.
“It’s a big win for me,” Nadal said. “I’m in the semi-finals. It’s a great result and it gives me confidence.”
Cuevas collapsed in the final set and as his game broke down the fans began to jeer, which angered him more, prompting him to take a few wild swings in the last two sets with balls sailing high and wide.
It is Nadal’s first event on clay since last year, a welcome change after losing last month on the hard courts in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open and being beaten in the first round in Qatar on hard courts.
Nadal looks slimmer this season, though when asked about it in Rio he said his weight was unchanged — about 85kg to 86.5kg. He said perhaps he seems smaller because he has not been wearing sleeveless shirts when he plays.
In other men’s matches, second seed David Ferrer advanced to the semi-finals, beating Juan Monaco of Argentina 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. He was next due to face Andreas Haider-Maurer of Austria, who won over Joao Souza of Brazil 7-6 (7/4), 1-6, 6-4.
On the women’s side, top seed Sara Errani of Italy reached the semi-finals after Haddad Maia retired in the deciding third set.
Haddad Maia, who won the first set, stopped with the score 3-6, 7-6 (7/2), 3-0 in Errani’s favor. Tournament officials said Haddad Maia withdrew with cramping.
Errani was due to face fifth seed Johanna Larsson of Sweden, who defeated Dinah Pfizenmaier of Germany 6-4, 6-0.
Second seed and doubles finalist Begu also made the last four, beating Julie Glushko of Israel 6-1, 6-2. Begu was next due to face sixth seed Anna Schmiedlova of Slovakia, who defeated Veronica Cepede Royg 6-3, 6-1.
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