Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Australian teenager Maya Joint on Tuesday eased into the Eastbourne Open quarter-finals in England as Hsieh prepares for the Wimbledon Championships next week.
Four-time Wimbledon women’s doubles champion Hsieh and 19-year-old Joint fired two aces and converted five of eight break points to defeat Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Poland’s Katarzyna Piter 6-3, 6-3 in 58 minutes on the grass court.
Hsieh and Joint are today to face fourth seeds Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, who advanced on Monday with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Quinn Gleason of the US and Oksana Kalashnikova of Georgia.
Photo: AFP
The WTA 250 tournament is generally considered a warm-up for Wimbledon, where world No. 15 Hsieh and world No. 4 Ostapenko are already seeded fourth. The pair have partnered in several tournaments this year, together reaching the finals of the Australian Open in January.
Hsieh most recently won the women’s doubles title at Wimbledon in 2023 with partner Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic. The Taiwanese also won in 2021, 2019 and 2013. She last year won the mixed doubles title at the tournament with Poland’s Jan Zielinski.
Taiwanese rising star Wu Fang-hsien and Chinese partner Jiang Xinyu, who together won back-to-back titles at the Auckland Open and Hobart International in January, are seeded 12th for Wimbledon.
In women’s singles at Wimbledon, British-Taiwanese player Joanna Garland is seeking to recreate her qualifying run to the main draw at Roland Garros last month. The 23-year-old, who became the first Taiwanese to clinch a victory in a main singles draw of the French Open since Hsieh in 2020, was last night after press time to face Slovak Renata Jamrichova in the second round of Wimbledon qualifying.
Garland last month shot up from world No. 175 to 147 following her showing in Paris. She rose to No. 144 after making it to the Libema Open quarters earlier this month.
Meanwhile in Germany, Wu and Jiang last night lost 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 10-5 to the Chinese pairing of Xu Yifan and Yang Zhaoxuan in the Bad Homburg Open women’s doubles quarter-finals.
Wu and Jiang advanced on Monday after surviving top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe in a nearly two-hour thriller, winning 6-7 (7/9), 7-5, 10-8.
On Tuesday, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and partner Clara Tauson of Denmark crashed out of the quarters in Bad Homburg, losing 4-6, 6-4, 10-7 to second seeds Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine and Ellen Perez of Australia.
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