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The dazzling duo of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna downed Great Britain's Neal Skupski and USA's Desirae Krawczyk to roll into Australian Open's mixed doubles final.
Mirza-Bopanna beat Skupski-Krawczyk 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (5/7), 10-6 in the semifinal clash on Wednesday (January 25) and they will next face the winner of the other semifinal between Australia’s Olivia Gadecki and Marc Polmans and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani and Rafael Matos.
The Indian duo saw got off to a good start as they served strongly for most part before Skupski-Krawczyk gave them a scare at 5-5. Mirza suffered consecutive break points on her serve but somehow managed to hold on as Bopanna came to the rescue and produced a superb backhand smash winner. The first set went to a tie-break which saw India closing it out to 7-5.
Mirza-Bopanna got the perfect start to the second set as they broke the dangerous serve of Skupski. However, Bopanna had a rare weak service game soon after and Krawczyk-Skupski went level at 3-3.
From that one break, it turned into three consecutive breaks as. And eventually, the Indians broke yet again with Mirza left with the opportunity to close out the match on her serve at 6-5. However, the Indians couldn’t close it out despite having consecutive match points as Bopanna uncharacteristically missed a straightforward volley at the net.
The second set went to a tiebreak and it ended with Krawczyk hitting a sensational backhand cross-court winner on the run.
Mirza-Bopanna would’ve been rattled after that heartbreaking loss in the second set but they regrouped quickly and bounced back to run away with the super tiebreak. Both the veterans produced some clutch tennis under pressure and held firm to complete a memorable victory.
Earlier, in the quarterfinals, Mirza-Bopanna were handed a walkover by Spain’s Daniel Vega Hernandez and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko.
Elsewhere, Tommy Paul stormed into his maiden Grand Slam semi-final as he halted the dream run of the surprise package Ben Shelton in the Australian Open quarterfinal clash . Paul overcame Shelton with a scoreline of 7-6 (8-6) 6-3 5-7 6-4 in the Men's singles clash at Rod Laver Arena. Meanwhle, World no.5 Aryna Sabalenka kept her hopes of a maiden Grand Slam title alive after thrashing Donna Vekic in straight sets in their women's singles quarterfinal clash. The fifth seed, who has lost three major semi-finals, progressed to a last-four date with Poland's Magda Linette, after triumphing 6-3, 6-2 over the unseeded 26-year-old Croatian in one hour and 47 minutes.
