New York: Indian tennis aces Leander Paes and Sania Mirza lived up to their billing by entering the finals of their respective categories at the year’s last Major, the US Open, here on Wednesday.
However, it was the end of the road for Rohan Bopanna as he lost both his men’s and mixed doubles matches at Flushing Meadows.
Women’s doubles top seeds Sania and Swiss Martina Hingis had an easy outing in their semi-final as they eased past Italian 11th seeds Sara Errani and Flavia Pennetta 6-4, 6-1 on Court 17.
In a topsy-turvy first set, the top seeds were broken twice. But they came back to break their opponents thrice to get the lead they wanted.
The second set was a much easier affair for Sania and Hingis. Though they were again broken once, they repeatedly broke the Italian duo to seal the set in 28 minutes and the match in an hour and 17.
The reigning Wimbledon champions will take on the winners of the match between Australian-Kazakh fourth seeds Casey Dellacqua and Yaroslava Shvedova and German-American pair of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Coco Vandeweghe.
Hingis later returned to partner Paes in the mixed doubles semi-finals. The pair took just over an hour to beat the Indo-Chinese Taipei pair of Bopanna and Chan Yung-jan 6-2, 7-5.
The fourth seeded Paes and Hingis had an easy first set, winning it in only 21 minutes after breaking the second seeds twice.
Bopanna and Chan came back strongly to break the Indo-Swiss duo, but the experienced pair broke back twice to clinch the second set and proceed to the final.
The pair will face unseeded Americans Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sam Querrey in the summit clash.
It wasn’t a good day for Bopanna as he also lost the men’s doubles quarter-final, partnering Romanian Florin Mergea. The sixth seeds went down to British-Swedish pair Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt 6-7(2), 3-6 in an hour and 20 minutes.
