Paes in mixed doubles final

January 27, 2012 04:22 pm | Updated October 18, 2016 02:07 pm IST - Melbourne

Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi leave the Rod Laver Arena after they lost to Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US and Horia Tecau of Romania in the mixed doubles semifnal at the Australian Open. Photo: AP

Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi leave the Rod Laver Arena after they lost to Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the US and Horia Tecau of Romania in the mixed doubles semifnal at the Australian Open. Photo: AP

Leander Paes is in line to win two Slam titles as he and Elena Vesnina reached the mixed doubles summit clash even as Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi bowed out after their semifinal defeat at the Australian Open, here on Friday.

Fifth seeds Paes and Vesnina came from behind to tame Roberta Vinci and Daniele Bracciali 5-7, 6-2, 10-7 in the semifinals.

Paes has already made it to the men's doubles final with Czech partner Radek Stepanek and they face top seeds Americans Bob and Mike Bryan.

Meanwhile, the sixth seeded Sania-Bhupathi's campaign ended after they lost 6-3, 6-3 to the eighth seeded pair of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecau in just 68 minutes.

Although the match was a closely-contested affair, the American-Romanian duo played better as far as the crucial points were concerned. The Indians could hit only 17 winners as compared to 24 by their opponents.

In the opening set, the Indians managed to convert only one breakpoint out 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 but the eighth seeds broke Sania and Bhupathi to go up 4-3 and then held their serve to make it 5-3.

The Indians once again failed to keep their serve and the opponents claimed their second consecutive break to book a place in the final.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.