Second seeds Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig today beat the all-Australian combine of Sam Stosur and Sam Groth 6-4, 2-6, 10-5 to progress to the finals of the mixed doubles at the Australian Open this morning.
The 2016 French Open runners-up, who last year lost out at the semi-final stages to eventual champions Elena Vesnina and Bruno Soares, put on a spirited fight today, with crowd support firmly behind the home side today. Mirza and Dodig started off strongly, taking an early break of serve in the first set, but were broken back immediately.
Both teams played attacking tennis today, with 2011 US Open singles champion Stosur bringing out some massive forehands to combat Mirza from far behind the baseline. The Australian powerhouse elicited a number of errors from the Indo-Croat pair, who after a strong first set stumbled in the second.
A number of crucial double faults at inopportune moments for the Indo-Croat combine gave the Australians the early break in the second set, and Groth and Stosur came closer to the net to attack in this set.
That quickly saw them race to set point.
The mixed doubles does not see a third set in the case of teams tying at one set all, but a 10-point match tiebreak; Mirza and Dodig’s previous match saw them win the tiebreak from four match points down, and it was here that Mirza and Dodig played some inspired tennis.
At moments during the tiebreak, when shots looked to be going long, Mirza pulled back to play some massive serves to bring it back into play. Stosur attempted some big forehand returns, with an incensed Groth struggling with his temper during the match.
Mirza and Dodig ran to a 9-5 lead in the tiebreak, and a bum forehand from Stosur went straight into the net post, giving the Indo-Croat combine the match.
They will now play the winner of the Elina Svitolina/Chris Guccione and Juan-Sebastian Cabal/Abigail Spears semi-final, which is to be played later today.
