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Su-Wei Hsieh practiced on Monday for over two hours on a practice court at the Miami Open. It was her off day after before a third round doubles match. After the practice with an older male American hitting partner, she walked back to the locker room by herself. Not a single fan recognized her or approached her despite the Yonex bag on her shoulder and her fit tennis figure, she made the three minute trek without signing one autograph or taking one fan photo.

Last year Hsieh, now 29, was the number one player in the world in doubles, she won Wimbledon and French Open titles with Peng Shuai. She’s also won two WTA singles titles, both in 2012 in Malaysia (vs. Petra Martic) and Guangzhou (in a three set marathon vs. Laura Robson, 6-4 in the third).

Maria Sharapova remembers Hsieh from junior days: “I faced her many times in the juniors. She used to be a nightmare for me because she used to slice and drop shot on clay. I was like, ‘Where did they learn how to play tennis like that?’ She uses both hands, switches racquets. That’s her game, it’s to hit a lot of drop shots and slices and get people kind of crazy.”

I first saw Hsieh play on TV this year in January, in the semifinals of the Australian mixed doubles, partnering with Pablo Cuevas. They were up an early break on Paes/Hingis, on the strength of Hsieh’s shotmaking and outstanding lobbing that befuddled both Paes and Hingis, two of the most experienced and accomplished doubles players on the planet. Tennis Channel commentator Justin Gimelstob was also dazzled by the Hsieh display of subtle court genius.

Eventually though, Cuevas let the team down, with a series of forehand errors. Hsieh told me last week, he was nervous and is typically a clay courter. In other words, he choked.

I decided to watch Hsieh again yesterday, now ranked #5 in the world, she’s playing with Italian Flavia Pennetta, who she once beat in singles. They played on Court 1 against the team of Alexandra Panova and Monica Niculescu and won the first set comfortably 6-3.

Hsieh, who wore all white, with black/blue Yonex shoes and a pink Nike hat, stands just under 5-7 but she is the slightest built professional tennis player I’ve ever seen. Her game is not built on strength or brawn but by touch, feel, intelligence and incredible reflexes.

She can create angles like Marcelo Rios but has a doubles court sense, as good as anyone. Her game is flamboyant in brief flashes, you might not even realize it, given how completely unostentatious her demeanor on court is. Some other Hsieh factoids: She’s made the semis of three of the four majors, earned over $3.7m in prize money. And she’s been coached by the former Aussie great Paul McNamee for four years. China offered her over a million dollars a year to play under the Chinese flag instead of Taipei (she did not accept).

Back to the match. How many times she hit a winner off of an overhead or volley was too many to count. Despite the subtle magic of her tennis, there is very little emotional expression except for a smile at a nice shot or the one time she swung and missed at a high ball that sailed long, after that Hsieh stuck out her tongue and smiled. Another thing I noticed is that her eyes never venture outside of the court, she never looks into the crowd. Even walking back to the changeover, she focuses on her chair or patting hands with her partner. You will not find a more focused player.

But she and Pennetta had a slight lapse in the second set, perhaps they became overconfident of the victory. As we know, things can change quickly in doubles. They both began to make errors off returns and baseline rallies and also a few bad shots that gave the opponents some easy slam balls. Suddenly, the games were slipping away like air from a rip in a tire. Just like that Hsieh and Pennetta were down 0-5. But they decided to not tank the set, they still believed they could win the set and battled back to 3-5 and even had a point for 4-5 which Pennetta missed. On the deciding point, Pennetta missed again with a netted forehand. That error was costly. It lost their momentum.

In the match tiebreak, Pennetta stumbled again. At 9-9 in the match tiebreak, Pennetta again missed two more shots, the last being a forehand return long, and the match was over. Niculescu and Panova two obscure players of little repute, had stolen this one.

Hsieh, hugged her partner, did the perfunctory handshakes, picked up her bag and walked back to the locker room. Again, no fans approached her for photos or autographs. No fan probably realized she was once the number one ranked doubles player in the world.

Su-Wei Hsieh, go watch her if you can. She’s one of those hidden gems of the sport of tennis.

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