Dubai: Taiwan’s Su-wei Hsieh and her Czech doubles mate Barbora Strycova have promised to continue with their partnership after winning the crown at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships late on Saturday.
Third-seeded Su-wei and Strycova carved out an impressive 6-4, 6-4 win over seventh-seeded pair of Lucie Hradecka and Ekaterina Makarova to be crowned the new doubles champions in Dubai.
“Please don’t leave me and go,” Su-wei pleaded and her Czech partner responded: “So I won’t leave her as this looks like a very good way.”
Su-wei — a losing singles semi-finalist this year after falling in three sets to Petra Kvitova — and Strycova was the dominant pairing on Saturday evening. They got off to the best start with a break handing them a 3-0 edge that they went on to translate into a 6-4 win in 38 minutes.
“I think we were playing really, really good and high level, especially in the second set when we were leading 4-1. Until 4-1, 40-Love, we didn’t kind of miss any ball. We had the chemistry on court,” Strycova explained.
“We know exactly what to do. This game I had an easy volley there to finish it to 5- 1, but I didn’t make it. Su-wei was at the net when it was 4-All and I was serving, and she helped me there three times. That helped us a lot to have the confidence again,” she added.
Handed a glimmer of hope, Hradecka and Makarova broke in the seventh and then Hradecka held to draw level at 4-4. But then, their opponents just raised their game a little bit and one more break on Ekaterina’s serve was enough to hand them the set and match in 80 minutes of entertaining tennis.
Result (Doubles): Su-wei Hsieh/Barbora Strycova bt Lucie Hradecka/Ekaterina Makarova 6-4, 6-4.
