The Chinese-Taiwanese team of Peng Shuai and Hsieh Su-Wei won the WTA Championships Istanbul doubles event on Sunday, becoming the first Asian team to ever win the year-end event. The team defeated Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russia 6-4, 7-5.
Makarova and Vesnina could not build on the momentum in the tournament after having defeated top-ranked Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in the semifinals.
“The most important thing today was that she was doing her job at the baseline, and I was doing my job at the net,” Hsieh said after the match. “I don’t think I can help a lot at the baseline so it was important that I was up at the net finishing the points. That was our game plan today and it really worked.”
This is Hsieh and Peng’s ninth WTA titles together and five of those came from this year alone including the Wimbledon Championships.
“We really enjoyed playing together this year,” Peng said. “We had a really good time together on the court – we fought sometimes, but it was still a lot of great memories, just the whole experience!”
The duo will be discussing during the off season whether they’ll continue their successful partnership during the 2014 season.
