Chan/Mladenovic down Kumkhum/Wongteanchai to reach semis – OEC Taipei Ladies Open 2012
Top seeds, Taiwan’s Hao-Ching Chan and France’s Kristina Mladenovic, dumped the Thai junction, Luksika Kumkhum and Varatchaya Wongteanchai, in straight sets at the OEC Taipei WTA Ladies Open 2012 on Thursday. They nudged up a 6-3, 6-4 victory against the Thais to book a spot in the final four at this maiden WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) 125 event held in Taipei.
The highest ranked tandem of Chan and Mladenovic showed brilliant skills and abilities to outrun their rivals in one hour and eight minutes. After registering this success, Chan and Mladenovic comfortably entered the semi-finals at this indoor carpet event.
Chan and Mladenovic high-spiritedly entered the Taipei Arena. They drew the first blood in the fourth game and leaped to a 4-1 lead. The Taiwanese-French pair held their remaining serves with self-assurance and consequently clicked the opener with a 6-3 success. They were never threatened with any barrier and converted one out of six break chances to their advantage.
The in-form collaboration of Chan and Mladenovic carried their rhythm in the following set. They broke their opponents’ serve twice and jumped to a 5-2 lead. Despite losing their serve in the very next game, the Taiwanese-French team plucked their serve once again and clinched the set with a 6-4 score line. They dusted away three out of four breakpoints they came across and cashed two out of five break chances to prevail.
Summing up the seeds’ performances, Chan and Mladenovic spilled more double faults and clobbered a lower first serve share of 68 per cent as compared to their rivals’ 80 per cent. However, they amazingly availed 28 out of 36 points on it and finished the match with 62 points.
Next up for seeds is the Taiwanese junction, Shao-Yuan Kao, and Hua-Chen Lee, who upset fourth seeds, Israel’s Julia Glushko and China’s Saisai Zheng, in three sets to set up this meeting.
The third seeded tandem, Taiwan’s Chin-Wei Chan and Japan’s Kimiko Date-Krumm, also earned the glory later that day. They trashed the local wild card entrants, Ching-Wen Hsu and Ya-Hsuan Lee, in straight sets in less than an hour to progress at this event.
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