Taiwanese players will be hoping to carry on a run of success in recent years at the first Grand Slam of the season, the Australian Open, which begins on Monday.
All but one of the Taiwanese players taking to the courts in Melbourne next week have done well at the event and there is a fair chance one or more will have cause for celebration this year, with the doubles competitions offering the best opportunities for a local victory.
Taiwanese women’s No. 1 Chan Yung-jan will be hoping to carry her good form from the end of last season into the new year.
PHOTO: AFP
In her final two singles tournaments of 2009 Chan won the Taipei Ladies Open and was runner-up at the US$75,000 Toyota tournament in November. Chan also won the doubles title in Taipei with compatriot Chuang Chia-jung.
In 2007 the pair reached the final of the women’s doubles at Melbourne and at the US Open, while Chan won the Australian Open junior doubles championships in 2004 with China’s Sun Sheng-nan.
Chan faces Kaia Kanepi of Estonia in the first round of the singles in Melbourne. Should she win, thereby matching her best-ever performance at the event, Chan is likely to come up against No. 19 seed Nadia Petrova of Russia.
The other Taiwanese player in the women’s singles draw is Chang Kai-chen, who ended a memorable 2009 in style by beating China’s Zhang Shuai last month to claim the women’s singles gold at the East Asian Games in Hong Kong.
The 18-year-old’s ranking has leapt from 232 to 102 over the past 12 months and she put herself in the global spotlight with her defeat of then-world No. 1 Dinara Safina at the Pan Pacific Open in September.
Chang, who will be making her first appearance in the main draw in Melbourne, started this year with a loss to Julia Vakulenko of Ukraine in the first qualifying round of the Auckland Classic.
In the qualifying tournament for the Mediabank International in Sydney last weekend, Chang beat Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland 6-7, 7-5, 6-1 before losing in three sets to Japan’s Kimiko Date Krumm.
Chang will play Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic in the first round at Melbourne Park.
Hsieh Su-wei will have fond memories of Melbourne having produced the best-ever singles performance by a Taiwanese at a Grand Slam by reaching the fourth round in 2008.
She reached the women’s doubles quarterfinals last year with China’s Peng Shuai and made the semifinals of the mixed doubles at the US Open with Zimbabwe’s Kevin Ullyett in September.
Hsieh and Peng were defeated by Chan and Monica Niculescu of Romania in three sets in the semifinals of the Moorilla Hobart International in Australia yesterday. In the other semifinal Chuang and Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic beat Italian duo Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci 6-3, 6-2.
The only Taiwanese man in the singles competition in Melbourne, Lu Yen-hsun, produced his best-ever Grand Slam singles performance by reaching the third round last year, accounting for 10th seed David Nalbandian on the way.
This year started with a defeat for Lu against Lukas Lacko of Slovakia in the first round of the Chennai Open. However, he reached the doubles final with Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, where they lost to Spanish pair Marcel Granollers and Santiago Ventura 7-5, 6-2.
Lu has been drawn to play a qualifier in the first round in Melbourne, with a likely match-up against No. 17 seed David Ferrer in round two.
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