Double delight for Sania at Wimbledon

Sania Mirza experienced a perfect day at the Wimbledon as she reached the women`s doubles semifinal and the mixed doubles third round.

London: Sania Mirza experienced a perfect day at the Wimbledon on Wednesday as she reached the women`s doubles semifinal for the first time in her career before advancing in the mixed doubles third round along with compatriot Rohan Bopanna here.Sania and her Russian partner Elena Vesnina, seeded fourth in the tournament, came from behind to beat unseeded Spanish pair of Nuria Llagostera Vives and Arantxa Parra Santonja 3-6 6-4 7-5 in the women`s doubles quarter-final.

Reaching the quarterfinals with American partner Bathanie Mattek in 2008 was her best performance till today`s match. The Roland Garros finalists faced stiff resistance from the giant killing Spanish combo but they quickly got back into the rhythm to prevail in a hard-fought battle. Sania and Vesnina will next face the winner of the other quarter-final match between the Chinese pair of Shuai Peng and Jie Zheng and Czech Republic`s Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia. Later in the day, Sania and Bopanna scored a straight set (7-5 6-2) victory over Jamie Murray of Great Britain and Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia in the second round. After winning the first set in tie-break, the Indian duo broke their opponents in the second game of the second set to take a 3-0 lead. Sania and Bopanna were then up 5-2 before breaking their opponents` serve once again to take the second set 6-2 and seal a place in the third round. In the next round, the Indian duo will meet Czech pair of Martin Damm and Renata Voracova who beat Eduardo Schwank of Argentina and Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia 6-7 7-6 6-3 in another mixed doubles second round match. PTI