Paes in mixed doubles final, Sania-Hesh ousted

Melbourne: Leander Paes is in line to win two Slam titles as he and Elena Vesnina reached the mixed doubles summit clash even as Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi bowed out after their semifinal defeat at the Australian Open, on Friday.

Fifth seeds Paes and Vesnina came from behind to tame a fighting Italian pair of Roberta Vinci and Daniele Bracciali 5-7, 6-2, 10-7 in the semifinals. Paes has already made it to the men`s doubles final with Czech partner Radek Stepanek and they face top seeds Americans Bob and Mike Bryan. Meanwhile, the sixth seeded Sania-Bhupathi`s campaign ended after they lost 3-6, 3-6 to the eighth seeded combo of Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States and Romania`s Horia Tecau in just 68 minutes at the Rod Laver Arena. Although the match was a closely-contested affair, the American-Romanian duo played better as far as the crucial points were concerned. The Indians could hit only 17 winners as compared to 24 by their opponents. In the opening set, the Indians managed to convert only only breakpoint out of the three that they got, besides losing their serve on two occasions to hand their opponents the advantage. The second set was on serve till 3-3 but the eighth seeds broke Sania and Bhupathi to go up 4-3 and then held their serve to make it 5-3. The Indians once again failed to keep their serve and the opponents claimed their second consecutive break to book a place in the final. PTI