Olympic gold medallists Ting Li and Tian Tian Sun of China were beaten to the doubles title at the Hyderabad Open by compatriots Zi Yan and Jie Zheng on Saturday.
The third seeds displayed excellent co-ordination to finish off the final in quick time at 6-4, 6-1.
Li and Sun, seeded second, were the favourites to win the tournament after top seeds Martina Navratilova and Anna-Lena Groenefeld withdrew following an injury to the latter. Added to that, they had the distinction of beating No.2 seeds Conchita Martinez and Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain 6-3, 6-3 in the women's doubles final at the Athens Games.
Yan and Zheng, were on guard to begin with, but once they had a break in the seventh game of the first set they were on a roll.
Zheng patrolled the baseline while Yan covered the net superbly to give the anxious crowd that had started to fill into the stadium from three in the afternoon for the singles final between the local girl Sania Mirza and Ukraine's Alyona Bondarenko something to cheer about.
"I played very well and so did my partner. We made a good combination," was the straightforward response by the young Yan after the match.
Once they had the first set in the bag, Yan and Zheng gave little opportunity to their famed opponents. They started the second set with two breaks of serve, going up 4-0 in no time.
Li and Sun, who had earned China its first Olympic gold medal in tennis, looked out of sorts. They were not overpowered but outplayed by their lesser-known opponents.
For Zheng, who had lost to Mirza in the second round of the tournament, the doubles triumph was some consolation for a week of hard work at the Open.
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