Melbourne [Australia]: Ace Indian tennis star Sania Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig produced a spirited performance as they bounced back from a set down to book their place in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles event at the season-opening Australian open here on Tuesday.
The Indo-Croatian pair knocked out Chinese-Austrian duo of Saisai Zheng and Alexander Peya 2-6, 6-3, 10-6 in a thrilling second-round contest that lasted about one hour.
After being outplayed in the first set, Mirza and Dodig showed their class as they comfortably won the second set and took the match to a 10-point tie-breaker.
The tie-breaker was a close affair as neither pair refused to budge. However, Mirza and Dodig upped the ante and won four straight points to make it 10-6.
With the win, Mirza and Dodig have now set up a clash against Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski, who rolled into the last-eight following their 6-4, 5-7, 10-3 win over the Polish-Taiwanese team of Lukasz Kubot and Chan Yung-jan in a exhilarating second-round contest that lasted one hour and 16 minutes.
In the women’s singles event, American tennis star Venus Williams sealed a semi-final berth after fending off Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) in the last-eight contest that lasted one hour and 47 minutes.
She will lock horns with her fellow countrywoman Coco Vandeweghe for a place in the summit showdown. (ANI)