Taiwan’s Chan sisters survived a roller-coaster day at the WTA Tour’s Wuhan Open yesterday to advance to the semi-finals of the doubles, while Lu Yen-hsun failed with his comeback bid and exited the ATP Tour’s Chengdu Open in the second round.
Second seeds Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan were a set down and facing a break point when their second-round match against Slovenian duo Andreja Klepac and Katarina Srebotnik was suspended due to rain on Wednesday, but they fought back yesterday to complete a 3-6, 7-5, 10-8 victory in 1 hour, 31 minutes.
The sisters saved five of 10 break points and converted four of six to set up a quarter-final against familiar adversaries Raquel Atawo and Abigail Spears later in the day.
Photo: AFP
The second seeds carried on their good form to win the first set against the American duo, before it all fell apart as the sisters suffered muscle cramps and called the doctor, before losing the second to love.
However, the Chans rediscovered their touch in the super tiebreak to complete a 6-3, 0-6, 10-4 victory in 1 hour, 22 minutes and improve their career record against the Americans to 4-2.
The Taiwanese pairing saved two of six break points and converted two of nine, winning 53 of the 102 points contested to advance to today’s semi-finals.
“Dramatic day ... but very happy we made it,” Chan Yung-jan wrote on Facebook.
Fellow Taiwanese Chuang Chia-jung and Kateryna Bondarenko also won their rain-affected second-round clash, completing a 6-4, 4-6, 10-8 victory over seventh-seeded Czech duo Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradrecka in 1 hour, 36 minutes.
However, the pairing fell to a 6-4, 6-2 defeat to Christina McHale of the US and Peng Shuai of China in their quarter-final in just 67 minutes.
In the women’s singles, world No. 5 Simona Halep downed Madison Keys in the quarter-finals to book her place WTA Final for the third consecutive year.
Big serving Keys took an early lead in the first set, breaking the Romanian’s serve twice, but was unable to maintain the momentum as Halep equalled and then took the set 6-4.
Halep — who turned 25 this week — dropped just two games to take the second set and confirm her place in the eight-player season finale in Singapore.
Only world No. 1 Angelique Kerber and Serena Williams have so far qualified for the highly lucrative tournament, and the field remains wide open for the remaining five spots.
In Chengdu, Lu rallied from a set down to level his second-round singles match with fifth seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas, but the Spaniard fought back to complete a 7-6 (7/4), 3-6, 6-4 victory in 2 hours, 28 minutes.
Joining the fifth seed in the quarter-finals were South Africa’s Kevin Anderson, who ousted second seed Nick Kyrgios of Australia 3-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2, and sixth-seeded Serbian Viktor Troicki, who outlasted Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.
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