Melbourne: Indian tennis ace Leander Paes reached his fifth Australian Open mixed doubles final when he made it in to the summit clash partnering Swiss veteran Martina Hingis at the Rod Laver Arena here on Friday.
However, it was the end of the road for top seeds Sania Mirza and Bruno Soares in the other semi-final of the same category, when they lost 6-3, 2-6, 8-10 in one hour and 14 minutes to French-Canadian third seeds Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor.
Though Paes and Hingis finished the match in two sets, it took them an hour and 14 minutes to seal the deal 7-5, 6-4.
Their unseeded opponents, Hsieh Su-wei (Chinese Taipei) and Pablo Cuevas (Uruguay), broke them once in the first set, but the Indo-Swiss combination went one better to take the first set.
In the second set, Cuevas and Hsieh got two chances to break the seventh seeds, but Paes-Hingis made sure they saved both the points and, in return, broke on their third attempt.
Paes has won the crown title here in 2003 and 2010, while Hingis won it in 2006 with India’s Mahesh Bhupathi. The 34-year-old Swiss has also won the singles title here three times — 1997, 1998 and 1999.
