Taiwanese world No. 3 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Belgium partner Elise Mertens on Monday won the opening round of the Rothesay Classic in Birmingham, England, while reigning champion Jelena Ostapenko crashed out in women’s singles.
Top seeds Hsieh and Mertens, who earlier this year won the women’s doubles titles at the BNP Paribas Open and the Australia Open, dominated Britain’s Alicia Barnett and Freya Christie 6-1, 6-1 to advance to the quarter-finals.
Hsieh and Mertens are next to play the winners of the round-of-16 match of Romanian Sorana Cirstea and Australian Ajla Tomlijanovic against Britain’s Samantha Murray Sharan and Eden Silva.
Photo: AP
Meanwhile, Ostapenko crashed out in straight sets to Elisabetta Cocciaretto.
The world No. 13 Latvian, ranked 13th, won her second career title on grass in June last year, but she fell 6-3, 6-3 at Edgbaston Priory to Cocciaretto, who still needed seven match points to defeat the 2017 French Open champion.
Cocciaretto is to face another Grand Slam singles winner from seven years ago in the second round when she takes on Sloane Stephens of the US.
Former US Open champion Stephens beat China’s Yuan Yue 6-3, 6-3.
In other matches, Laylah Fernandez — runner-up to Britain’s Emma Raducanu in the 2021 final at Flushing Meadows — saw off Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-1, 6-1, while third seeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea lost 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 to China’s Zhu Lin.
Both seventh seed Anastasia Potapova and two-time Wimbledon quarter-finalist Tomljanovic made it through to the next round.
At the Ecotrans Ladies Open in Berlin, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and partner Veronika Kudermetova of Russia beat Giuliana Olmos of Mexico and Alexandra Panova 6-1, 6-4 in their women’s doubles match to set up a quarter-final showdown against top seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Ellen Perez of Australia.
Melichar-Martinez and Perez defeated Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien and Shuko Aoyama of Japan 4-6, 6-0, 11-9.
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