Athens Olympics doubles champion Li Ting failed to progress in
women's singles event at the US$600,000?WTA Qatar Open.
Li reached the main draw after fierce clashes from the
qualifying round, only to meet a strong Maria Kirilenko, winner of
last year's China Open.
Li lost the game 6-2, 6-4.
To her comfort, Li and Olympic partner Sun Tiantian won their
doubles opener with ease.
They defeated A. Bachmann and K. Nagy 6-1,6-3.
Another Chinese doubles specialist Zheng Jie, the newly crowned
Australian Open doubles champion, also lost her singles first
round: 6-0, 6-1, to Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova.
(CRI English?March 1, 2006)
