The Chan sisters were on Thursday ousted in the quarter-finals of the Aegon Open in Nottingham, England, the top seeds undone by another pair of doubles specialists.
Taiwanese top seeds Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan fell to a 6-2, 7-6 (7/3) defeat to Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic and Peng Shuai of China in 1 hour, 23 minutes on the grass courts at the Nottingham Tennis Centre.
Hlavackova, a two-time Grand Slam doubles champion with fellow Czech Lucie Hradecka, and Peng, a two-time Grand Slam doubles champions with Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei, saved all five break points they faced and converted two of 12, winning 70 of the 126 points contested to advance to a semi-final today against another pair of sisters, Karolina and Kristyna Pliskova, after the Czechs ousted third-seeded Chinese duo Han Xinyun and Wang Yafan 6-4, 6-3 in 58 minutes.
Photo: Reuters
In the singles, China’s Zheng Saisai put a dampener on British favorite Johanna Konta’s joy at breaking into the world’s top 20 by beating her 6-4, 7-5.
Konta, who this week became the first British woman since Jo Durie in 1983 to be ranked in the top 20, underwent treatment during the match after she felt a niggle in her lower back.
“I picked up a little niggle during that match, but I felt it was something I could manage,” said Konta, who had won both her previous encounters with Zheng.
“That’s why I thought I could finish, but I’ll just be looking to take care of it and be ready for the next event,” Konta said.
“I wasn’t distributing weight as well as I used to. If you know me well, I usually put more weight on my right side, and I wasn’t able to do that today,” she said.
“Credit to her; she played a lot of balls and got a lot of balls back. I think there were a lot of high-quality points,” the 25-year-old Australia-born second seed added.
Zheng, who Konta beat on the way to the Australian Open semi-finals earlier this year, showed some terrific form as she rebounded from going 2-0 down in the first set to break her opponent twice and take it in 45 minutes.
Konta looked to be on course to level the match when she went 4-2 up in the second set.
However, once again Zheng, 22, found the reserves and the spirit to fight back and kept her nerve to serve out for the match — saving three break points to boot — keeping alive her hopes of a first singles title on the WTA tour.
Zheng is to face another Briton in the last eight after Tara Moore caused an upset of her own in beating eighth-seeded Christina McHale of the US 6-2, 6-2.
Australia’s Ashleigh Barty joined Zheng in the last eight with a hard fought 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 win over Andrea Hlavackova.
For Barty — a doubles finalist at both Wimbledon and the US Open in 2013 — it is to be her first WTA quarter-final since 2014, after she took time out to play cricket.
“I really enjoyed my 18 months at home and met some really nice people through cricket,” said 20-year-old Barty, who won the Wimbledon girls singles title in 2011.
“I played a season, but nothing forced me back into tennis. I just felt like it was the right time,” she added.
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