Ostapenko and Taiwan's Hsieh reach US Open doubles round of 16

Latvian tennis player Jeļena Ostapenko and her Taiwanese partner Su-Wei Hsieh secured their spot in the round of 16 of the US Open doubles tournament with a second-round win on Sunday.

Seeded fourth, the Latvian-Taiwanese duo defeated Czech player Marie Bouzková and Spanish player Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-1, 7-6 (7:4). Ostapenko and Hsieh closed out the first set convincingly, but the second set brought a dramatic turn — their opponents pulled ahead 4-1 before the Latvian-Taiwanese pair fought back to win the tiebreak.

Next opponent

In the round of 16, Ostapenko and Hsieh will face either the 14th-seeded pair of Hao-Ching Chan of Taiwan and Maya Joint of Australia, or an international duo made up of Argentina's Nicole Hurego and Germany's Tamara Korpatsch.

For reaching this stage, Ostapenko has already earned 240 WTA doubles ranking points. Earlier, in the first round, the Latvian-Taiwanese pair had comfortably beaten Croatians Darija Jurak Schreiber and Antonia Ružić 6-4, 6-3.

Previous US Open history

Ostapenko has won the US Open doubles title before — two years ago, she claimed the championship alongside Ukraine's Lyudmyla Kichenok. Last year, however, her partnership with Czech player Barbora Krejčíková ended in a first-round loss. In this year's singles tournament, both Ostapenko and Darja Semeņistaja were eliminated in the first round.

The main draw of the season's final Grand Slam tournament, played on hard courts, concludes on September 13.