Kanepi out of Cincinnati qualifying

Top qualifying seed Kaia Kanepi was eliminated from Cincinnati qualifying in the first round today. Kanepi was defeated 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 by qualifying wild card Hsieh Su-Wei.

Also going out in the first round of qualifying were 3rd seed Elena Baltacha (def. by Julie Ditty), Sania Mirza (def. by Bojana Jovanovski) and Alison Riske (def. by Vania King).

Hiesh & Peng upset in Australian Open doubles

Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai, seeded 4th at the Australian Open, were upset in the 3rd round today in straight sets by 13th seeds Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta. The winners, who are friends and occasional doubles partners, are likely to face 6th seeds Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs in the next round.

5th seeds Nadia Petrova and Samantha Stosur were upset in the first round by Vera Dushevina and Anastasia Rodionova. Three other seeded teams have been upset so far.

Seeded first are Cara Black and Liezel Huber, 2nd seeds are Serena and Venus Williams, an seeded 3rd are Nuria Llagostera Vives and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.

Hsieh and Peng win China Open

The team of Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai won the 2009 China Open today, defeating Alla Kudryavtseva and Ekaterina Makarova 6-3, 6-1.

In singles, Agnieszka Radwanska defeated Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-3 to advance to the final. She will compete against Svetlana Kuznetsova, who defeated Nadia Petrova 6-1, 6-3.

With her win today, Radwanska returns to the top 10.

Stosur and Bryan upset in Wimbledon mixed doubles

Number 2 mixed doubles seeds Samantha Stosur and Bob Bryan were upset today by 9th seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Mark Knowles. Groenefeld and Knowles posted a score of 0-6, 7-5, 6-3. Also upset were 4th seeds Hsieh Su-Wei and Kevin Ullyett, who lost to 12th seeds Virginia Ruano Pascual and Stephen Huss.

Hsieh and Peng win Rome doubles title

Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai, who won the 2008 Bali title and the 2009 Sydney title, won the Internazionali BNL d'Italia doubles championship today. Hsieh and Peng defeated Daniela Hantuchova and Ai Sugiyama 7-5, 7-6.

Williams sisters tested, but move on in doubles

Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai did something today that no one else at the Australian Open had done: They took a set off of the Williams sisters. The sisters took the first set, 6-2, and Hsieh and Peng took the second, 6-4. In the first five games of the third set, there were four breaks. At 3-all, the Williams sisters broke again, then held, then successfully served for the match at 5-3.

I have already written about the two big doubles thrillers that took place today. There was another quarterfinal, of course. Casey Dellacqua and Francesca Schiavone defeated Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Patty Schnyder, 0-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Number 2 seeds win one game in 3rd round

Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai have defeated the Australian Open 2nd seeds, Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual, 6-0, 6-1 in the third round. The 2008 French Open winners had problems with their service games, achieving a first serve win percentage of only 30.

Cornet starts Hopman Cup with a win

The 2009 Hyundai Hopman Cup has begun, with France competing against Chinese Taipei. Alize Cornet has defeated Hsieh Su-Wei, 6-4, 6-4.

Cornet's partner for the Hopman Cup is Gilles Simon. Unfortunately, neither of the Chinese doubles stars--Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia-Jung--is participating in the event.

Hsieh and Peng win Bali title

Number 3 seeds Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai defeated Marta Domachowska and Nadia Petrova today to win the title in Bali. Domachowska and Petrova were unseeded.

This is the first time that Hsieh and Peng have played doubles together.

Hsieh/Peng def. Domachowska/Petrova, 6-7, 7-6, 10-7

3 qualifiers left in Melbourne

Among the qualifiers who entered the main draw of the Australian Open, only three are left, and they are not the three many of us would have guessed: Hsieh Su-wei, Marta Domachowska and Sabine Lisicki.

Hsieh, who won a gold medal in the 2006 Asian Games, has reached the third round by defeating qualifier Klara Zakopalova (formerly Kukalova) and the talented and seeded Sybille Bammer. Lisicki, who is ranked number 194 in the world, defeated Dinara Safina, of all people, and then defeated Mariya Koryttseva.

Most surprising is the veteran Marta Domachowska, who has been on a long slide down the rankings for some time. Domachowska has never before gotten beyond the second round of a Grand Slam tournament, and she has seen her ranking slip from number 36 (in the spring of 2006) to number 146. In order to get out of the qualifying rounds, she had to beat talented young Ayumi Morita, and when she reached the main draw, she defeated Mathilde Johansson and Sofia Arvidssson, who had taken out Marion Bartoli.

What's next for these qualifiers? Hsieh faces Aravane Rezai, who has been on somewhat of a roll lately, and who eliminated Tatiana Golovin from the Australian Open just the other day. Lisicki gets talented Caroline Wozniacki, who made it through the second round by defeating Alona Bondarenko. And Domachowska gets the toughest challenge of all: She plays Li Na, whose return to pro tennis after a very long lay-off was punctuated by her winning at Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, the lowest seed standing is Sania Mirza, who next faces Venus Williams.

The seeded players who have already been elimnated are: Marion Bartoli, Tatiana Golovin, Patty Schnyder, Dinara Safina, Sybille Bammer, Agnes Szavay, Alona Bondarenko, Lucie Safarova, and Julia Vakulenko.