Sania-Tecau move into semifinals

India’s Sania Mirza and her Romanian partner Horia Tecau stormed into the semifinals of the mixed doubles event at the Australian Open with straight sets victory over Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Julia Georges, here today.

Sixth seed Sania and Tecau hardly broke a sweat to prevail over the unseeded Aisam-Julia combination 6-3 6-4 in their quarterfinal clash that lasted just 63 minutes.
The Indo-Romanian duo will play Australian pair of Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden in the semifinals.

The unseeded Australian pair stunned second seeds Katarina Srebotnik of Sloivakia and India’s Rohan Bopanna 7-5 6-3 in another quarterfinal yesterday.

Sania and Tecau got three opportunities to break their opponents in the opening set, out of which they converted one, which was enough for the Indo-Romanian pair to pocket the set in 28 minutes.

In the next set, Sania and Tecau broke their opponents in the ninth game to serve out the set in 35 minutes and book a place in the last four stage.

Later in the day, Leander Paes and Slovakia’s Daniel Hantuchova lost their quarterfinal match to the Canadian-French combine of Daniel Nestor and Kristina Mladenovic.
Paes-Hantuchova lost 3-6, 3-6 to Nestor-Mladenovic in 62 minutes.

With the loss, Paes’ challenge in the tournament came to an end. He and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek lost in the men’s doubles quarterfinals.