Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and her mainland Chinese partner Peng Shuai won July 6 the women’s doubles title at Wimbledon, the first time a Taiwan player has bagged a Grand Slam title.
After struggling to a tie in their first set against Australians Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua, Hsieh and Peng romped to victory in the tie-break, taking the first set 7-6 and the second 6-1.
ROC President Ma Ying-jeou, Vice President Wu Den-yih, Premier Jiang Yi-huah and Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling, sent Hsieh congratulatory messages, praising her for boosting the nation's sporting profile.
According to the MOE Sports Administration, Hsieh is the ROC's most outstanding women's tennis player. In 2012, she won the women’s singles at the Malaysian Open, an event on the Women’s Tennis Association tour, and made it into the third round of the Wimbledon women’s singles.
Hsieh jumped to No. 23 in the world rankings after the win, the highest for an ROC woman. The top singles rank Hsieh has attained is No. 14.
Her accomplishments as a singles player include taking the title at the 2012 Guangzhou International Women’s Open. In 2011, she won the doubles tournament at Guangzhou, partnering with mainland China’s Zheng Jie.
Hsieh and Peng, both 27, teamed up a decade ago to play in junior tournaments but went separate ways after turning professional. They reunited in 2008, winning their first 11 matches and, before Wimbledon, five tournament victories in Bali in 2008, Beijing in 2009, Rome in 2009 and 2013 and Sydney in 2009.
With their victory at Wimbledon, Hsieh and Peng have moved up in WTA doubles rankings from No. 16 to No. 9 and from No. 23 to No. 10, respectively.
Before winning the finals, they were honored with lifetime membership of the All England Club for having advanced to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. (JD)
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