Ostapenko and Hsieh open season-ending tournament with a loss

Latvian tennis player Jelena Ostapenko and Taiwan's Su-wei Hsieh lost their opening doubles match at the WTA Finals on Monday, 10 November. The WTA Finals is the season-ending tournament of women's professional tennis, held this year in Indian Wells. The Latvian-Taiwanese pair, seeded fifth, fell to China's Guo Hanyu and France's Kristina Mladenovic 6-3, 1-6, 10-12.

The result makes the race for a semifinal place harder, as the top two finishers in each group will advance.

Lead lost in the super tiebreak

In the deciding super tiebreak, Ostapenko and Hsieh built leads of 6-0 and 8-2 but could not close out the win. At 6-9, the third-seeded Chinese-French duo saved four match points and won 12-10.

What comes next in the group

In the rest of the tournament, Ostapenko and Hsieh will face the top favorites in their group, Canada's Gabriela Dabrowski and Brazil's Luisa Stefani. That pair beat the seventh-seeded Shuai Zhang of China and Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) in their opener. Ostapenko and Hsieh will also meet Zhang and Mertens.

The second group features Katerina Siniakova (Czechia) and Taylor Townsend (USA, seeded second), Kristina Bucsa (Spain) and Nicole Melichar-Martinez (USA, fourth), Ellen Perez (Australia) and Demi Schuurs (Netherlands, sixth), and the eighth-seeded Italian pair of Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini.

Ostapenko and Hsieh also played in the season-ending tournament last year, when they were eliminated in the semifinals. This year's event in Indian Wells runs until 15 November.