Top seeds Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig beat their rivals, reigning champions Leander Paes and Martina Hingis, in straight sets – 7-6, 6-3 to progress to the semi-finals of the Australian Open.
Mirza and Hingis will tomorrow play the finals of the women’s doubles against the all-Czech pair of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, who are seeded 7th at the tournament.
Paes and Hingis won last year’s title, but this year were unseeded at the tournament. They won 3 Majors last year, missing out on the French Open title.
Today, the first set between the two was a very tight one, Hingis and Paes took an early march on their opponents as they broke them first to take a lead. The other pair broke back, however, and after taking their revenge took the set to a tiebreaker – one that Dodig thoroughly dominated.
After the first set loss, Paes and Hingis appeared to lose their momentum somewhat, committing 7 unforced errors and managing only four winners to their rivals’ 10.
They remained unable to break Mirza and Dodig, who built on their first set win to close out the second 6-3, and with it,make the semi-finals of the mixed doubles.
They will now play the pair of Elena Vesnina and Mirza’s former partner Bruno Soares of Brazil, who with Jamie Murray is also in the finals of the men’s doubles.
