Indian Wells: Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens storm into doubles final, boost WTA Finals hopes
- Taiwanese veteran and Belgian partner blitz Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara in just 54 minutes
- Performance at ‘fifth grand slam’ boosts Race to WTA Finals chances as Veronika Kudermetova and Elena Rybakina await
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium stormed into the women’s doubles final at Indian Wells on Thursday, boosting their WTA Finals hopes with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara.
The No 2 seeds romped past the No 3 seeds at the BNP Paribas Open in straight sets, wrapping things up in just 54 minutes.
Aoyama and Shibahara – who have already qualified for their first season-ending WTA Finals event next month – saved six of 11 break points, but were powerless to stop the experienced Hsieh and Mertens.
The Japanese duo also struggled badly on both their first and second serves, allowing Hsieh and Mertens to blitz past them and into the showpiece of the event often referred to as the “fifth grand slam”.
They will play Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan on Friday (local time). The unseeded duo felled Lyudmyla Kichenok and Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets – 6-4, 6-3 – in an hour and 15 minutes.
In reaching the final, Hsieh and Mertens have boosted their hopes of making it to the WTA Finals in Mexico next month.
‘Dinosaur’ Hsieh blasts past Gauff, Fernandez at Indian Wells
The duo were in fifth place, 19 points behind US Open champions Zhang Shuai and Samantha Stosur ahead of the WTA 1000 tournament at Indian Wells.
China No 1 Zhang and her Australian partner did not play at the tournament, allowing Hsieh and Mertens to gain ground on them and the third-placed duo, Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Demi Schuurs.
The fifth seeds at Indian Wells, Schuurs and Melichar Martinez went out to the unseeded teen duo Coco Guaff and Leylah Fernandez in the second round.
Hsieh and Mertens beat the teenage pair in the quarter-finals before knocking out the Japanese pairing, one of two doubles teams to have already qualified for the WTA Finals.
The other pair – Indian Wells top seeds Barbora Krejckova and Katerina Siniakova – were beaten by Kichenok and Ostapenko in the quarters.
The WTA Finals will see the top eight singles players and doubles pairings on the Race to the WTA Finals standings from November
This year’s event has been moved to Guadalajara from its original home of Shenzhen because of Covid-19 travel restrictions in China.
