Mumbai: Second seeded Sania Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig beat Rohan Bopanna and Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada via a tie-break in the final set to advance to the semifinals of the mixed doubles at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday.
Mirza and Dodig won 6-4, 3-6, 12-10 in an hour and seven minutes in what was a very closely fought encounter. The Indo-Croatian pair might run into Leander Paes and Martina Hingis in their last four clash if the latter win their quarterfinal against the Samantha Stosur and Sam Groth of Australia.
Mirza and Bopanna lined up against each other having been partners in mixed doubles at the 2016 Rio Olympics where they finished fourth, losing the bronze medal play-off tie.
Both pairs matched each other stroke by stroke with Bopanna and Dabrowski actually hitting more winners in the match (32) than Mirza and Dodig (19). But the second seeded pair's experience together came in handy as they won the points that mattered to close out the match.
