TENNIS/Hsieh, Zhang advance to women's doubles quarterfinals at Indian Wells

Taipei, March 10 (CNA) Taiwanese tennis player Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her doubles partner Zhang Shuai (張帥) of China dispatched their opponents 6-2, 6-3 in Indian Wells on Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals at the BNP Paribas Open.

The fifth-seeded Taiwanese-Chinese pair came out strong against Americans Makenna Jones and Mccartney Kessler in the opener, breaking their opponents' serve several times to clinch the first set.

Hsieh and Zhang kept up their strong play in the second set, besting their opponents 6-2 to seal the match that lasted just 62 minutes.

They will next face Australian Ellen Perez and Latvian Jelena Ostapenko in the quarterfinals, both of whom are seeded fourth in the tournament.

At the start of the season, Hsieh had partnered with Ostapenko for the Australian Open and the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, but they fell short and had to settle for second place in the finals of both competitions.

Also on Sunday, Taiwanese player Chan Hao-ching (詹皓晴) and her Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova saw their run in Indian Wells come to an end, when they lost 5-7, 6-3 (8-10) in the women's doubles in the round of 16 after a super tiebreaker.

The BNP Paribas Open is part of the ATP Masters 1000 events on the ATP Tour and also part of the WTA 1000 events on the WTA Tour.

The annual professional tennis tournament is being held March 5-16 in Indian Wells, California.