Sania in Australian Open mixed doubles final

Ace Indian tennis player Sania Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig defeated local favourites Samantha Stosur and Sam Groth to enter the Australian Open mixed doubles final here on Friday.

The second seeded Indo-Croatian pair outplayed the Australian team 6-4, 2-6, 10-5.

The pair will meet American-Colombian duo Abigail Spears and Juan Sebastian Cabal in the final, after they defeated the pairing of Chris Guccione and Elina Svitolina 7-6(1) 6-2.

Sania-Dodig won an epic quarter-final against Rohan Bopanna and Gabriela Debrowski, where they claimed a 12-10 win in the deciding breaker.

Stosur and Groth approached the match after three straight-sets wins to the semi-finals, with both teams boasting proven doubles quality.

Sania-Dodig began perfectly, breaking the Australian duo and claiming the opening set before Groth and Stosur stormed through the second set to force the match tiebreak.

From then on it was the second seeds who took control. Sania with three mixed doubles titles, will look for a fourth career crown and second in the tournament. Dodig is yet to win a mixed doubles event.

Sania-Dodig committed nine unforced errors, 16 less then their opponents and won 60 of the total 117 points played in the match.

Also on Friday, second seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova won the women's doubles final 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-3 over Andrea Hlavackova and China's Peng Shuai.

This is their second Australian Open title and fourth major trophy together, having won in 2015. They didn't pair up in the tournament last year.

--IANS

sam/bg