Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Viking Classic grass-court tournament in Birmingham, England, where she joined fellow Taiwanese Chan Hao-ching and Latisha Chan.
Top seeds Hsieh and Elise Mertens defeated Sam Stosur of Australia and Coco Vandeweghe of the US 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour, 18 minutes.
The Taiwanese-Belgian duo saved two of five break points and converted five of 14, winning 12 of 17 points on second return to advance to a quarter-final against Naiktha Bains of Britain and Tereza Martincova of the Czech Republic.
Photo: Reuters
Earlier, the Chan sisters took just 66 minutes to see off the challenge of Julia Wachaczyk of Germany and Wang Yafan of China 7-5, 6-2.
The Taiwanese second seeds did not face a single break point and converted three of four, winning 29 of 34 points on first serve to set up a quarter-final against Czech duo Marie Bouzkova and Lucie Hradecka.
In the singles, former top 10 player Vandeweghe continued her resurgence, rallying to defeat Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
Photo: Reuters
Tomljanovic had upset top seed Mertens in a grueling three-hour, three-set match on Tuesday that featured three tiebreakers.
She took the first set against Vandeweghe with the help of three double faults by the American.
Vandeweghe used her serve to take control after that, winning 12 of 14 points on first service in the second set, including five of her 10 aces in the match.
In other matches, Bouzkova defeated Caroline Garcia of France 6-3, 6-0; Kristina Mladenovic beat Fiona Ferro 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in an all-French matchup; Donna Vekic of Croatia rallied to top Italy’s Camila Giorgi 2-6, 6-3, 6-1; and Heather Watson of Britain advanced when Zhang Shuai of China retired trailing 5-2 in the first set.
Vandeweghe reached two Grand Slam semi-finals in 2017 and twice has been a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon. She earned her first WTA Tour victory in nearly two years on Monday by beating Kristyna Pliskova in straight sets with the help of 13 aces.
Vandeweghe, who has been plagued by injuries, last won a WTA Tour match in July 2019.
Once ranked as high as ninth, she is currently world No. 203 and faces No. 50 Bouzkova in the quarter-finals.
The Czech was down 1-3 to Garcia in the opening set, then won 11 straight games.
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