From 0-6 to 12-10 in the match tiebreak
Guo Hanyu and Kristina Mladenovic saved four match points to beat Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko 3-6, 6-1, [12-10] in their opening WTA Finals doubles match in Indian Wells on November 9 local time.
After dropping the opening set, Guo and Mladenovic levelled with a 6-1 second set. The deciding match tiebreak counts points rather than ordinary games: a team must reach at least ten points with a two-point margin.
They lost the first six points of that tiebreak and still trailed 2-8. At 6-9 they faced three consecutive match points, saved them all, then erased a fourth at 9-10 before completing the comeback 12-10.
Zhang and Mertens lose as the first-round winners prepare to meet
Guo is making her first WTA Finals appearance, while this is Mladenovic’s fifth. The Frenchwoman won the tournament in 2018 and 2019. Together, the pair won Auckland and Wimbledon this season.
In the other Group 1 match, top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani defeated Elise Mertens and Zhang Shuai 6-3, 7-6(5). After an exchange of early breaks, the top seeds broke again to take the first set. They served for the match at 5-4 in the second but were broken back, eventually winning the tiebreak 7-5.
Dabrowski and Stefani have won six titles together this season, including WTA 1000 events in Wuhan, Beijing and Dubai. Their straight-sets win put them first in the group after the opening round, ahead of Guo and Mladenovic.
The two winning teams will meet on Wednesday, November 11 local time.
