Good to see Anna and Xenia playing together again... hope this means they will also pair up at the French Open. Their first performance this week in Slovakia was a bit hit and miss, still getting used to each other, but they seem to have a capacity for hanging in there together which is productive, and they are a lefty/ righty pair, which is helpful too (as are Beth and Olivia).
They are indeed playing the FO together. I posted our women's doubles teams in Anna's current tournament thread.
Yes, I've seen it now thanks, I'm very pleased about that, and hope their partnership can flourish... She has some quite big points coming off over the next month, starting with 280 pts this week 21, so she needs a good partner and some good results.
And Anna and Xenia have made a great start taking out the fourth seeds on another MTB...
Just to note that Anna's current ranking of 46 is a career high. The 280 pts from winning Nurnberg come off end of this week however, so she is currently -220, but only slips 3 places to 49 thus far. Best Anna can do from the week though is move back up to 47...
The MTB specialists do it again... but still have to be able to take that skill into finals too. One more step to go before they have a chance at that this week, and it will be against the Romanian pair that includes one of Anna's former partners this year, and who took out the top seeds in round one. And although unseeded, their ranking is in fact slightly higher than this week's 4th seeds whom Anna and Xenia in turn put out in the first round.
QF: Anna SMITH & Xenia KNOLL (GBR/SUI) 113 (46 + 67) beat Qiang WANG/ Yafan WANG (CHN/CHN) 223 (143+80) 6-3 3-6 10-5
SF: Anna SMITH & Xenia KNOLL (GBR/SUI) 113 (46 + 67)Mihaela BUZARNESCU/ Raluca OLARU (ROU/ROU) 103 (61+42)