Kaia Kanepi out of Guadalajara women's doubles
Kaia Kanepi and her women's doubles partner Linda Fruhvirtova (Czech Republic) are out of the season-closing Guadalajara tournament in Mexico after losing in three sets, 3:6, 6:1, 10:5 to the pairing of Latvian Jelena Ostapenko and Ukrainian Ljudmla Kitšenoki.
Kanepi was already out of the singles after losing to Russian player Liudmila Samsonova, while the Estonian and her partner spanned the age range of players entering the competition – Kanepi, ranked 29th in the world, is 37; Furhvirtova is 17.
The pair beat Mexican-Colombian duo of Fernanda Contreras Gomez and Camila Osorio in straight sets in round one to set up the meeting with Ostapenko and Kitšenok.
While the Estonian and the Czech broke their opponents' service twice in the opening set in the prestigious WTA1000 event, taking the set 6:3, Ostapenko and Kitšenok returned the favor in the second set, and only dropped one game.
The decider, played as a tie-break as per doubles rules, started off well for Kanepi and Fruhvirtova, who won the first point, but the Ukrainian and the Latvian strung together seven points out of the next nine, ultimately prevailing 10:5. They play top seeds Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova in the quarter finals.
The result represents the end of the WTA season so far as Estonian players go; Anett Kontaveit was absent from Guadalajara after picking up an injury in the Ostrava tournament in the Czech Republic earlier in the month.
Warmer tournaments for the Australian Open will start in January.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
