Press Trust of India
Melbourne, Jan 27: Sania Mirza and her Swiss partner Martina Hingis stormed into the final of the women’s doubles of the Australian Open after notching up a comfortable straight-set win here Wednesday.
However, Rohan Bopanna’s campaign ended with a shock defeat in the mixed doubles quarterfinals with partner Yung-Jan Chan of Chinese Taipei.
Sania and Martina, who are on a record winning streak, continued to rule the roost as they brushed aside Julia Goerges and Karolina Pliskova, the 13th seeds, 6-1, 6-0 in just 54 minutes at Rod Laver Arena to enter their third successive doubles Grand Slam final. This was the Indo-Swiss combo’s 35th win on the trot.
The top seeded Indo-Swiss pair will take on the seventh seeded Czech combination of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in the summit clash.
Sania and Martina broke their rivals twice in the first set, which lasted 26 minutes, before steamrolling the German-Czech combination in the second set with three breaks of serves.
The Indo-Swiss duo won the Wimbledon and US Open titles, before winning the season ending WTA Finals in 2015.
“Just one more match to go,” tweeted Sania after the match. “Hope we can just continue the good show and maintain
the streak.”
Earlier, the third seed Bopanna and Chan lost 2-6, 5-7 to unseeded combination of Slovenia’s Andreja Klepac and Philippines’ Treat Huey in just 55 minutes at Show Court 2.
The Indo-Taipei team squandered four breakpoints in the match, including three in the second set, to bow out of the tournament.
Meanwhile, the Indian challenge ended in the junior girls’ with the defeat of Karman Kaur Thandi and Pranjala Yadlapalli in both singles
and doubles.
In the singles, Karman lost 6-3, 5-7, 5-7 to Sara Tomic of Australia in the third round while 10th-seeded Pranjala bowed out after a 5-7, 5-7 defeat against eighth-seeded Russian Anastasia Potapova.
Later in the doubles, the fifth seeded duo of Karman and Pranjala lost 6-7(3-7), 5-7 to the Australian pair of Maddison Inglis and Jaimee Fourlis.