Leander, Sania in semifinals

Sania Mirza and Leander Paes are on course for a Australian Open showdown as they reached the mixed doubles semifinals with their respectice partners here 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 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.

Sania and Soares await winners the 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 Katarina Srebotnik from Slovakia and Marcelo Melo from Brazil.

Meanwhile, in the boys singles, Sumit Nagal’s campaign ended with a 1-6, 1-6 defeat against Marc Polmans in the third round.