Melbourne: Sania Mirza and Leander Paes were on course for an Australian Open showdown as they reached the mixed doubles semifinals with their respective partners on Wednesday.
Sania 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 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.
(Photo: AP)
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.
