Dubai: Hao-Ching Chan of Taipei teamed up with Zhaoxuan Yang of China to ease in to the doubles final of the Dubai Duty Free Women’s Open on Friday.
The Asian pair dug in deep for 6-4, 7-5 win in 89 minutes over Alicja Rosolska and Abigail Spears in Friday’s first semi-final on centre court.
They will now meet the winner of the second semi-final that was to be played between Olympic champions and top-seeded Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina and Su-Wei Hsieh and Shuai Peng that was scheduled to be the last match on centre court on Friday.
“In the end it was our work together as a team,” Hao-Ching explained after the match.
“I think we do well as a pair while making up the weak spots. We don’t mind any of the two pairs in the final as both are such strong teams,” she added.
The first set was a crazy affair of seven breaks with Chan and Yang nosing clear 5-4 after the ninth game. Yang then served off on love to win the set 6-4 in 38 minutes. In the second set the Asians were off to an early 3-0 lead with breaks in the first and third games. But the American and Polish girl fought back for a couple of breaks to draw level 4-4.
Goaded on by older sister Chan Yung-jan, Chan and Yang fought with their backs against the wall to come through with set and match in nearly an hour and a half. “Sometimes it’s important to have someone pushing from the crowd. This time it was my sister and both of us got the boost needed from her shouting ‘come on, come on’,” Chan admitted.
“Tomorrow is a different day and we shall see how we can use our strong part of the game and win against a very strong pair,” she added.
