Rika Fujiwara withstood a second set rally by Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-jung to win their second-round singles clash 6-1, 6-4 at the OEC Taipei Ladies Open yesterday.
Doubles specialist Chuang made a bad start, dropping serve in the first game and holding it just once in the only game of the set she won.
Chuang looked out of sorts, making a series of unforced errors, perhaps a result of the match being only her second singles contest of the year.
PHOTO: FANG BIA-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Her prospects didn’t look bright when a forehand in the first game of the second set ended up on an adjacent court.
The 24-year-old from Kaohsiung found herself 0-40 down on Fujiwara’s serve later in the game, but battled back and had a stroke of luck when the Japanese double faulted on game point.
Chuang returned the favor by doing the same thing in the next game before Fujiwara just managed to hold her serve after being 0-40 down in game three.
This pattern of hard-fought games with frequent breaks of serve continued until Chuang found herself with a break point at 4-4. A good serve saved Fujiwara, but the Taiwanese wasted another chance to serve for the set when she sent a subsequent forehand wide. An over-hit forehand then left her serving to stay in the match.
Chuang ended the contest in the most disappointing of ways, a double fault, that left her to concentrate on the doubles.
Later on she teamed up with Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan to down Ayumi Oka of Japan and Varatchaya Wongteanchai of Thailand 6-4, 6-2.
Meanwhile, top seed Ayumi Morita picked up where she left off in the first round with a convincing 6-2, 6-2 victory over Katalin Marosi of Hungary to set up an all-Japanese clash in the quarter-finals with Fujiwara.
In other singles action yesterday, Australia’s Sophie Ferguson beat Japan’s Yurika Sema 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-1 and Kristina Mladenovic of France defeated Kim So-jung of South Korea 6-4, 6-2.
Other results yesterday:
• S Ferguson (Aus)/Hsu Wen-hsin (Taiwan) beat Hsieh Su-wei (Taiwan)/Hsieh Shu-ying (Taiwan) 3-6, 6-3, [10-5]
• O Kalashnikova (Georgia)/A Panova (Russia) beat Chan Hao-ching (Taiwan)/Kao Shao-yuan (Taiwan) 6-4, 7-5
• E Sema (Japan)/Y Sema (Japan) beat A Kapros (Hungary)/K Marosi (Hungary) 6-4, 7-6(6)
• Y Basuki (Indonesia)/R Zalameda (US) beat C Gullickson (US) / N Kriz (Austria) 7-5, 2-6, [14-12]
• Chang Kai-chen (Taiwan)/A Morita (Japan) beat Hwang I-hsuan (Taiwan) / Zhang Ling (Hong Kong) 4-6, 6-3, [10-2]
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