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.