All's well that ends well

It was a thrill to team up with my partner Hsieh Su-wei to win the doubles title at the WTA Championships in Istanbul on Sunday. I've since received tons of text messages from friends, which is very sweet.

Our opponents - Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina - are always tough. Before Sunday, we last played them in August at Cincinnati, where we managed to escape with a narrow win after a third-set super tiebreaker.

The serves by Makarova and Vesnina made me somewhat uncomfortable this time. Vesnina is right-handed and Makarova is a lefty, and in doubles matches when a left-handed player serves the direction of the ball is harder to predict because of the positioning.

I was so nervous before the match that at one point I told Su-wei that I might need to go to the hospital because my heart was pumping so fast. But once we started playing, our opponents seemed to be more nervous than us and we quickly jumped out to a 5-1 lead.

Overall, this was a bittersweet season for me. I had some beautiful moments like Sunday, but I went through rough patches as well. The daily practice routine can be exhausting, but the company of coaches and friends takes away a lot of the stress.

And then there is Su-wei. Frankly speaking, we butt heads at times. But over the past year I have learned to look at things from a different perspective and that has helped me grow mentally stronger. I think this has helped us really click as teammates.

For a time this year we had some doubts about continuing our playing partnership, but the Wimbledon title silenced all doubts and got things back on track. That is one of our best memories of the year.

(China Daily 10/29/2013 page24)