Taipei, Feb. 25 (CNA) Taiwanese sisters Latisha Chan (詹詠然) and Chan Hao-ching (詹皓晴) finished second in the women's doubles at the Dubai Tennis Championships after losing to Russians Veronika Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova 4-6, 7-6(4), 1-10 in the final on Saturday.
The Chan sisters lost the opener after Kudermetova and Samsonova saved seven out of eight break points to win the first set 6-4. The Taiwanese duo then rallied in the second set to save seven out of eight break points to edge 7-6(4), forcing a third set tiebreaker.
However, Kudermetova and Samsonova shot ahead to win the third set 10-1 and hence the matchup, taking a total of two hours and four minutes to ice the match.
Latisha Chan and Chan Hao-ching reached the women's doubles final at the tournament after overcoming third seeds Dutch-American duo Demi Schuurs and Desirae Krawczyk in a three-setter 6-1, 4-6, 10-4 on Friday to reach their 23rd WTA final as a pair.
Meanwhile, Kudermetova and Samsonova sped past second-seeded Latvian-Ukrainian duo Jelena Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok 7-5, 6-2 in the semifinals on Friday to qualify for the final of the United Arab Emirates tournament.
Even though the Taiwanese were not able to clinch the Dubai Tennis Championships title on Saturday, Chan Hao-ching clinched the doubles title with Wu Fang-hsien (吳芳嫺) in the WTA Thailand Open earlier this month.
The Dubai Tennis Championships, a WTA-1000 level event, was held Feb. 19-25 and carried a total purse of US$2,788,468.
