INDIAN WELLS, the United States, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Taipei's Hsieh Su-Wei and her new partner Barbora Strycova of Czech Republic surprised top seeds Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova 6-4 6-4 to lift the BNP Paribas Open doubles title Saturday in Indian Wells, California.
The two unseeded veterans, teaming up for the first, defeated the top three seeded teams en route to the women's doubles championship and took home a combined 439,350 U.S. dollars with the victory.
"We got together, like, 10 minutes to 12:00 before the sign-in because we didn't know if we could get in," Strycova explained how and why the duo got together in their press conference after defeating the Russian pair.
"[Hseih] was supposed to be with Monica [Niculescu] here and me with Andrea [Hlavackova], but there were some rule changes. We couldn't switch. So we said, 'OK, we will play together and they will play together.' So this is how we ended up."
With Saturday's victory, Hsieh now has 20 doubles titles, including two Grand Slams and one in the WTA Finals, and one in Indian Wells in 2014 with Peng Shuai of China. Strycova now has a tour-high 21 doubles titles, and had been playing with Lucie Safarova.
"In doubles, it's most important is you enjoy the game," said Hsieh.
"I think doubles is different from singles. Singles you need to get more power, you're going to run more. But doubles you see other teams, you're happy, you enjoy it. Doesn't matter you win this time or lose this time. We just enjoy it and play some good tennis."
During Saturday's title match of one hour and 23 minutes, both teams served above 70 percent but Hsieh and Strycova made the difference with their second serve, winning nine out of 14 points to limit the damage in their games.
The No. 1 seeded team, who had not dropped a set coming into the finals, had 11 previous titles together. However, the 2013 champions, three-time Grand Slam winners and Olympic gold medalists made too many errors and they were under a constant pressure in their service games.
