Women's doubles Olympic winning pair Li Ting/Sun Tiantian
overcame a lackluster start on Friday to outlast Vera Douchevina
from Russia and Natalie Grandinof South Africa in full sets.
Being broken thrice in the opening set, Li and Sun, whose strong
play in Athens claimed a historic Olympic gold medal for China 13
months ago, lose the game 6-1, 7-6(5), 6-2 in more than two
hours.
Trailing 3-1 in the second set, Sun served the fifth game and
played a winner against Grandin's return to break the opponents for
the first time into the match and to narrow the deficit to 3-2.
Sun, whose giant-killing run in singles was snapped by
Russiansensation Maria Kirilenko after losing 6-1, 6-3 on Friday,
again played the ball with shifting directions to force tie breaker
when being down 6-5 after leveling the games of second set for
three times, and won it in luck as Grandin double-faulted to
succumb to 7-5.
Launching a strongly comeback in the decider, Sun and Li forced
an error from the opponent to win the set 6-2 after breaking them
for three times.
(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2005)