Sania in mixed doubles fil

Melbourne, Jan 27: 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 fil 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 fil, after they defeated the pairing of Chris Guccione and Eli Svitoli 7-6(1) 6-2.

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

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 tourment. 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. IANS