Melbourne : India’s Leander Paes and his Russian partner Elena Vesnina have reached the Australian Open mixed doubles final.
The pair defeated the Italian duo of Roberta Vinci & Daniele Bracciali 5-7, 6-2, 10-7.
Paes has already made the men’s double final with his Czech partner Radek Stepanek.
Bhupathi-Sania ousted from Australian Open mixed doubles
The Indian pair of Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi crashed out of the Australian Open after suffering a straight sets defeat in the mixed doubles semifinal here on Friday.
The sixth seeded Indian pair’s campaign ended after they lost 3-6, 3-6 to the eighth seeded combo of Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States and Romania’s Horia Tecau in just 68 minutes at the Rod Laver Arena.
The match was a closely-contested affair but the American-Romanian duo played better when it came to the crucial points. The Indians hit only 17 winners as compared to 24 by their opponents.
In the opening set, Sania and Bhupathi managed to convert only one breakpoint of the three that they got, besides losing their serve on two occasions to hand their opponents the advantage.
The second set was on serve till 3-3 when the eighth seeds broke Sania and Bhupathi to go up 4-3 and then hold their serve to make it 5-3.
The Indians once again failed to keep their serve and their opponents claimed their second consecutive break to book a place in the final.
However, Leander Paes has kept the Indian hopes alive as he has cruised into the men’s doubles final with his partner Radik Stepanek.
Paes and Elena Vesnina will face Roberta Vinci and Daniele Bracciali in the other mixed doubles semi-final.
