Paes-Hingis pair reaches Australian Open semis

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Melbourne, Jan 28: Sania Mirza and Leander Paes were on course for a Australian Open showdown as they reached the mixed doubles semi-finals with their respective partners, here today.

Sania Mirza and her top-seeded Brazilian partner Bruno Soares carved out an easy 6-2, 6-2 win over the home pair of Casey Dellacqua and John Peers in the quarterfinals, which lasted in only 53 minutes.

Seventh seeded Paes and Swiss Martina Hingis progressed from the bottom-half of the draw with a 6-3, 6-1 win over fourth seeds Andrea Hlavackova from Czech Republic and Austria's Alexander Peya. Sania and Soares broke their rivals two times each in both the sets.

They did not face any breakpoint in the opening set and saved a couple in the second set. They now await winners of the other last-eight match between third seeds Kristina Mladenovic/Daniel Nestor and fifth seeds Cara Black/Juan Sebastian Cabal.

Paes and Hingis will face either Taipei's Su-Wei Hsieh and Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay or second seeds Katarina Srebotnik from Slovakia and Marcelo Melo from Brazil.

Meanwhile, in the boys singles, Sumit Nagal's campaign ended with a crushing 1-6, 1-6 defeat against Australia's Marc Polmans in the third round.

PTI