HSIEH Su Wei etched her name in the annals of the BMW Malaysian Open by becoming the first qualifier and Asian player to reach the women's singles final at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian & Country Resort yesterday.
Su Wei, who battled past three rounds in the qualifiers before making it to the main draw, continued her dream run by overcoming Greece's World No 81 Eleni Daniilidou 6-0, 4-6, 6-1, in a rain-interrupted semi-final match, to advance to her first career tour final since turning professional in 2001.
The World No 123 had an advantage in the match, as she had not played since Thursday. Su Wei's quarter-final opponent, Agnieszka Radwanska's withdrew due to an elbow injury on Friday.
As for Eleni, she had only a few hours rest after her quarter-final match, brought forward from Friday, before she was back on court to face Su Wei. Eleni defeated Australia's Olivia Rogowska 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 in the quarter-finals.
"I came here when I was 14 years old and won an age-group event and today (yesterday), in my first event since then, I am in the final once again.
"I've been in many ITF level finals but this is only my first tour final," said Su Wei, a semi-finalist of the recent Pattaya Open, yesterday.
"I am so happy and excited. It is always special when you slog through the qualifiers before making it to the main draw and later the final."
The semi-final match was interrupted twice with the first delay, lasting about two hours, when the players were on court, warming up.
When play resumed, the fitter Su Wei outsmarted Eleni's with her patience game and broke the first set three times before closing it with a bagel.
Su Wei, however, lost her focus in the second set, allowing Eleni to break serve in the first and third game before the match was stopped by the chair umpire due to the rain.
The 26-year-old managed to get back into the set when played resumed 75 minutes later, but Eleni held on to take the match into a third set.
The tiring Eleni was struggling with her game but held on before Su Wei broke serve in the fourth game for a 3-1 lead and that proved to be a decisive moment for the Taiwanese as after that she easily hit continuous winners to claim victory.
Eleni had to call for the trainer when she was down 4-1 in the third set but she continued with the match.
"It was a long wait as this match was interrupted twice..actually tiring. I knew she was tired and I tried to make her run as I wanted to finish the match as quickly as possible.
"I made mistakes in the second set but managed to recover in time for the deciding set to claim a win. The rain-break also helped me a little," she said.
Su Wei's game has improved since acquiring the services of Australian-born coach Paul Mcnamee late last year.
"He has been working with me since the start of the year and my game has improved so much under him," Su Wei added.
The other singles semi-final match between Croatia's Petra Martic and Serbia's Jelena Jankovic has been postponed to today due to rain.
AT A GLANCE:
Results —Singles, q-finals: Eleni Daniilidou (Gre) bt Olivia Rogowska (Aus) 6-2, 3-6, 6-2; Jelena Jankovic (Srb) bt Ayumi Morita (Jpn) walkover; S-final: Hsieh Su Wei (Tai) bt Eleni Daliilidou (Gre) 6-0, 4-6, 6-1; Doubles, s-final — Chang Kai Chen-Chuang Chia Jung (Tai) bt Casey Dellacqua-Jarmila Gajdosova (Aus) 6-4, 6-0.
