Hsieh Su-wei and Barbora Strycova have been one of the best doubles team this year, having just started their partnership at the start of 2019. Two accomplished doubles players joined forces only in February but were able to quickly rack up a series of impressive results to be ranked first on the Porsche Race to Shenzhen leaderboard after the US Open.
Hsieh and Strycova won their first title in only their second tournament together at the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championships, beating three seeded pairings en route to clinching 900 valuable points. They had to endure through a quiet clay season but still managed to lift the Mutua Madrid Open title, one of the four Premier Mandatory tournaments on tour.
The Taiwanese-Czech pairing dominated the grass-court season, being victorious in Birmingham, and more importantly, Wimbledon where they won their first Grand Slam title together as a pair. The win also brought Strycova to the number one ranking for the first time in her career.
Hsieh and Strycova had only competed in Cincinnati and the US Open since then — but their campaigns ended in the early rounds on both occasions. Will they find their form in time for the year-ending championships, where the doubles competition will return to the Round Robin format for just the second time (first time was in 2015) in the tournament’s history?