No. 6 seeds Hsieh Su-Wei and Jelena Ostapenko took a step closer to the WTA Finals Riyadh semifinals by defeating No. 1 seeds Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini 6-3, 6-4, improving to 2-0 and taking the lead in the Martina Navratilova Group.
If Kudermetova and Mertens defeat Asia Muhammad and Demi Schuurs in Day 3’s second doubles tie, Hsieh and Ostapenko will advance as group winners.
WTA Finals Riyadh: Scores | Draws | Order of play
Hsieh and Ostapenko had been slow to get going in their first match, trailing Veronika Kudermetova and Elise 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 out-manoeuvred 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.”