Sania Mirza and her Croatian partner Ivan Dodig sailed into the final of the mixed doubles at the Australian Open 2017on Friday as they edged past the Australian pair of Samantha Stosur and Sam Groth 6-4, 2-6, (10-5).
At the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. it was a dominant start from the second-seeded Indo-Croatian pair as they broke their opponents in the very first game of the match to go 1-0 up but then failed to hold on to their serve to square things back at 1-1. (Rafael Nadal vs Grigor Dimitrov Australian Open semis live)
Sania Mirza-Ivan Dodig almost earned the break once again in the next game but Stosur-Groth won the decider to lead 2-1. Sania Mirza and Groth then held on to their respective serves before Ivan Dodig was broken yet again in the sixth game as the Australian duo led 4-2.
.@MirzaSania and @DodigTennis are through to the mixed doubles final #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/KQbgRf7MUQ
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 27, 2017
It was then that the Indo-Croatian pair hit top gear and broke the Aussies twice, before holding on to their individual serves, to win four consecutive games and take the first set. Dodig, who had been broken twice already, slammed an ace down the tee and the pair wrapped up the first set in just 34 minutes.
However, in the second set, the Aussie pair stormed back in the match with a dominant show as Sania Mirza was twice broken on her serve. Trailing 2-5 in the second set, Sania Mirza did manage to pull things back on her serve from 0-40 down to deuce, but failed to hold on as they lost the set in just 31 minutes.
Good game, mates ? #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/Hss8uELREG
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 27, 2017
In the final set tie-break, Groth-Stosur were trailing 3-4 when Groth lost both the points on his serve and Mirza-Dodig took full advantage to open up a five-point gap. Both the pairs won a point each on Stosur’s next serve but the Australian duo failed to close the deficit.
Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig will now go on to face the winners of the other Australian Open mixed doubles semi-final featuring Elina Svitolina/Chris Guccione and Abigail Spears/Juan Sebastian Cabal.
Source: HindustanTimes