The doubles final in Wuning featured the two highest-ranked pairs in the competition, with Monique Barry and Yuan Cheng-yiyi facing top seeds Huang Yu-jia and Zhang Ying. Like Barry, Zhang is left-handed, but the difference is that she’s close to Erin Routliffe’s height, so has a pretty commanding presence on court. Zhang and Yuan served first for their respective teams, and both held comfortably before Huang stepped up to the line.
Every single standout shot in the first set came in this game, starting with a beautiful cross-court forehand return into then tramlines from Barry after her partner had been forced into a return error. Yuan got them to deuce with a lovely crosscourt forehand winner, while Barry snapped up the deciding point with a great backhand volley down the right-hand side of the court.
It looked as though Barry might give the break straight back when she was taken to 15-40 by a backhand volley from Yuan that went into the net, but Zhang hit a backhand wide before a smash from Yuan got them to deuce. Zhang took the deciding point, but a great serve saw her forced to hit her forehand return over the baseline. The second rotation of serve saw all four players hold comfortably, and that left Zhang needing to do the same again to keep her team in the set.
She started by acing Yuan out wide before Huang got a lucky net cord when the ball fell over well in front of Barry, but a double fault was followed by unforced and forced errors from Zhang to give the second seeds two set points. They only needed one, forcing Zhang to hit an inside-out backhand wide, and the set was complete after 37 minutes.
Yuan made a dreadful start to the second set, with her third double fault in the game dropping her back to deuce. Huang won the deciding point with an inside-out forehand volley, but lost the fantastic 13 shot rally of the match on her partner’s first serve when forced to hit a backhand volley into the net. Barry followed that with a beautiful forehand winner down the tramlines, and Huang added a lovely cross-court forehand volley before eventually winning the game with a forehand volley down the middle of the court.
There was another fantastic rally on Barry’s first point, this one ending after eleven shots when she steered a forehand volley into the right-hand side of the court, and she aced Zhang down the middle before Huang ended the game by dumping a backhand into the net. She did better on her own serve, holding to love after Zhang had created game points with a beautiful inside-out backhand volley.
Yuan didn’t serve as badly in her second game as she did her first, but she still gave away another break by hitting three unforced errors in her last four points. Her fabulous forehand winner into the left tramline may well have been the shot of the match, but it didn’t stop Zhang holding again to consolidate the second break. Barry held to love to keep her team afloat, but she hit backhand errors to lose the last three points in the next game, and that gave the top seeds the set after the same 37 minutes required for the first set.
Yuan started the match tie-break with a double fault, and missed a sitter of a backhand volley on the last point before they changed ends that would have levelled the scores. She compounded that first mistake by losing her third point with a forehand into the net, but they did get one of the mini-breaks back when Zhang double faulted as well.
That brief glimmer of hope was immediately snuffed out when Zhang’s cross-court forehand volley ended a good rally on Barry’s first point, and the top seeds needed just two more points to claim the title as they changed ends for the second time. Huang hit a backhand volley wide to end a great rally on Barry’s second point, with the New Zealander missing her next return to give Huang and Zhang four Championship points.
Yuan saved the first with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner, and the second with an unreturnable serve to Huang, but it was third time lucky for the top seeds when they forced Barry to hit a forehand volley into the net. The final score was 3-6, 6-2, 10-7, and the match had lasted for an hour and 32 minutes.