Sania Mirza entered the women's doubles semi-finals and set up a high-intensity clash against Leander Paes in the mixed doubles after both the Indians made the quarter-finals with their respective partners in the Australian Open in Melbourne, on Tuesday.
Sania and Swiss great Martina Hingis, seeded No.1, survived a mid-match slump to beat the 12th seeded German-American combine of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Coco Vandeweghe 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.
The duo, who are on a record winning streak, will next face the 13th seeded German-Czech pair of Julia Goerges and Karolina Pliskova.
Sania continued her good run as she and Croat Ivan Dodig, also seeded top, sailed past the unseeded Kazakh-Pakistani duo of Yaroslava Shvedova and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi 7-5, 6-2.
On the other hand, Paes and Sania's women's doubles partner Martina Hingis hammered the American-Dutch pair of Sloane Stephens and Jean-Julien Rojer 6-1, 6-2.
As a result, Sania and Paes find themselves pitted against each other in the mixed doubles quarter-finals.
In the junior competition, fifth seeds Karman Thandi and Pranjala Yadlapalli entered the girls' doubles quarter-finals after defeating China's Siqi Cao and Jia Ren 6-4, 4-6, (10-2).
