India kept their hopes flying in Australian Open, with their best players Sania Mirza and Leander Paes both making it to the semi-finals of mixed doubles. Perhaps the more exciting bit is, the pair might well be heading for a title showdown.
Sania Mirza, who has had a pretty handy last couple of seasons both at Grand Slams and Asian Games, yet again showed her class in a one-sided drubbing of local favorites John Peers and Casey Dellacqua, in a game which lasted a measly 53 minutes. Her partner, the top-seed Bruno Soares of Brazil, showed impressive co-ordination. While Soares held firm around the base-line Sania launched into her trademark scorching forehands around the net, making short work of her opponents. The pair didn't concede a single break point, while taking advantage of two breaks each in both sets to close it out neatly.
They will now face the winners of Kristina Mladenovic/Daniel Nestor (third seeds) and Cara Black/Juan Sebastian Cabal (fifth seeds) - and can certainly expect a sterner test of their mettle.
Meanwhile, nearing on 42, Leander Paes shows no sign of slowing down from the 16-yr old 'jumping bean' that had Andre Agassi raving once. His partner 'Swiss Miss'Martina Hingis too, stole some hearts (and her fair share of Grand Slams) debuting at 16, is a veteran at 34 now. Yet, the seventh seeded pair dumped a younger combination of Andrea Hlavackova (28, Czech republic) and Alexander Peya (34, Austria). The Czech-Austrian pair tried to put up a fight in the first set, but dropped a crucial break to concede it 6-3. In the second set, however, they were steamrolled 6-1 to concede a straight set defeat.
Taipei's Su-Wei Hsieh and Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay or second seeds Katarina Srebotnik from Slovakia and Marcelo Melo from Brazil would be the next hurdles for the Indo-Swiss pair.