No. 6 seeds Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko took a step closer to reaching the final four at the WTA Finals by defeating No. 1 seeds Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini 6-3, 6-4 to open up Day 3 in Riyadh.
And following Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens’ win over Asia Muhammad and Demi Schuurs in Day 3’s second doubles tie, Hsieh and Ostapenko have officially advances to the semifinals as group winners.
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Hsieh and Ostapenko had been slow to get going in their first match, trailing Kudermetova and Mertens 6-1, 4-2 before pulling off a comeback win. They didn’t make the same mistake against Errani and Paolini: The Australian Open and Wimbledon finalists were on top form from the word go.
Hsieh opened the match with a return winner and one of her trademark impossible angles conjured from nowhere, and they raced through the first eight points en route to a 3-0 lead. Ostapenko kept her level high, too, pulling off several high-risk drive volleys from behind the service line and on multiple occasions even using the slice to set up powerful winning groundstrokes.
By contrast, Errani and Paolini were uncharacteristically flat and rarely played with their usual verve. Throughout the first set, they were repeatedly outmaneuvered in the forecourt by Hsieh and Ostapenko. The second set saw Errani begin to make inroads at net, and the Italians were aided by Ostapenko twice failing to pull off attempted return winners on deciding points.
But in the final game, it was the Latvian who rose to the occasion. From 40-15 down, Ostapenko found a winning backhand volley and then a brilliant, angled return to bring up match point, duly converted as Hsieh put away a volley.
The result was a reversal of Hsieh and Ostapenko’s 6-4, 6-0 loss to Errani and Paolini in the Beijing semifinals one month ago.
“I feel like Su-wei was playing really well today,” Ostapenko said in their on-court interview. “Me, it was so-so, but it was OK — it was a tough match, they are great players. We felt we had to play very aggressive all the time to keep them under the pressure. There were so many games we lost at deuce, but we tried to be calm and stay positive.
If Ostapenko had shown her frustration at those missed deciding points, Hsieh was able to shrug them off on account of their team spirit.
“I know we always have our backs,” she said. “So, I didn’t worry when we were down and there were so many deuces and we didn’t take a few. We have our backs.”
Kudermetova and Mertens stave off Muhammad and Schuurs to set up winner-take-all match
On Saturday, Kudermetova and Mertens won the opening set before dropping the second set and falling in a match tiebreak to Hsieh and Ostapenko.
It appeared as if history might repeat itself Monday, as the No. 4 seeds needed just one break point to claim a tightly contested first set, only to lose the second set in a tiebreak.
This time, however, the 2022 WTA Finals champions regrouped and got over the finish line for a 6-4, 6-7 (6), [10-6] win over Muhammad and Schuurs, keeping their hopes alive for a second Martina Navratilova trophy.
All it took was teamwork.
“It was teamwork at the end,” Mertens said after the match. “From the start to the end, actually. All credit to our opponents for keeping it real, especially in the second set and in the tiebreaker. But yeah, we’re very happy with the win.”
After six consecutive holds to open the match, Kudermetova and Mertens broke for a 4-3 lead and served out the set to move in front.
The second set was even tighter, and much less straightforward. Breaks were traded, highlights came nearly every other point and during one stretch, four straight games featured deciding points.
The result was a second-set tiebreak that saw Kudermetova and Mertens hold a match point at 6-5 before losing the next three points to lose the set.
But the Wimbledon champions struck first in the match tiebreak, building a 7-5 lead and sealing the win a few points later with a backhand winner from Kudermetova to close out Day 3 of the WTA Finals.
The victory sets up a winner-take-all match against Errani and Paolini on Wednesday, with a semifinal berth on the line.
The teams have met three times this season, with Errani and Paolini winning two, including straight-set victories in the Rome final and Roland Garros quarterfinals.