Taiwanese sisters Latisha Chan and Chan Hao-ching yesterday held off a late rally at the WTA Gippsland Trophy at Melbourne Park to seal their berth in the women’s doubles final.
After an easy two-set win on Friday, the second-seeded Chan sisters dropped the second set of the match, but managed to prevail in a super tiebreaker, edging past the Russian pairing of Anna Blinkova and Veronika Kudermetova 6-2, 3-6, 11-9 in 83 minutes.
After a 2-2 tie early on, the sisters went on to break their opponents’ serve twice before producing a rallying spurt to win the first set.
Photo: AFP
In the second set, Blinkova and Kudermetova put up more of a fight and topped the Taiwanese duo 3-6, forcing a super tiebreak.
The sisters eventually won the match to advance to the women’s doubles finals, where they face the Czech duo Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova today.
The last time that the Chan sisters reached the finals — at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Japan in September 2019 — they won the title.
Also yesterday, two-time Grand Slam winner Garbine Muguruza set up a Yarra Valley Classic final with world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, as another Australian Open warm-up tournament was cut short due to lack of time.
Muguruza, the Australian Open runner-up last year, smashed 20 winners and broke 21st-ranked Marketa Vondrousova’s serve five times en route to a 6-1, 6-0 win in 53 minutes.
“I’m very happy to get through. It’s good to play the top players and I’m expecting another tough battle against the world No. 1,” the Spaniard said.
The Yarra Valley Classic is one of three women’s tournaments — along with three men’s events — at Melbourne Park as players tune up for the start of the Australian Open Grand Slam tomorrow.
However, after Thursday’s play was lost over the emergence of a COVID-19 case, the schedule became too tight to complete the WTA Grampians Trophy, which is now to stop after the semi-finals.
Greece’s Maria Sakkari next faces Estonia’s Annett Kontaveit, while world No. 24 Jennifer Brady faces fellow American Ann Li in the truncated tournament’s semis.
In the Yarra Valley Classic, Muguruza has shown the form that put her at the top of the rankings in 2017, so far dropping just 10 games in four matches, including her quarter-final thrashing of Sofia Kenin — her conqueror in last year’s Australian Open final.
She next faces Barty, who reached the decider with a walkover after Serena Williams pulled out due to a shoulder injury.
Elsewhere, Elise Mertens of Belgium next faces Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi in the final of the Gippsland Trophy after world No. 3 Naomi Osaka withdrew with a shoulder injury.
Kanepi beat Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 7-6 to reach her first WTA final since 2013.
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