Sania impresses in US Open, end of road for Paes
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New York: A mixed day for the Indians at the US Open saw Sania Mirza reach the quarter-finals of women's doubles and the semi-final of mixed doubles but Leander Paes failed to replicate his compatriot after losing both his men's doubles and mixed doubles.
Sania, though, had the ill-fate of dumping her compatriot Rohan Bopanna out of the year's final Grand Slam as the two squared off in the mixed doubles quarters with their respective partners.
The top seeded pair of Sania and Bruno Soares were made to work hard for their semifinal berth finally overcoming the sixth seeded team of Bopanna and Katarina Srebotnik 7-5, 2-6, 10-5 Monday.
The first set was an even affair with Bopanna and Katarina hitting 18 winners to their opponent's 14 but it was the number of unforced errors, 10, that cost the Indian-Slovenian pair the first set.
They came back strongly in the second breaking the top seeds twice and hitting 14 winners, nine more than Sania and Soares.
In the super tie-break, Sania and Soares outgunned their opponents wrapping the match with five winners.
Sania had a much easier time in her women's doubles match. Partnering Zimbabwean Cara Black, the India recorded a facile 6-3, 6-2 win over Serbia's Jelena Jankovic and Klara Koukalova of Czech Republic.
It was the end of the road, though, for Paes as he lost both his men's doubles and mixed doubles encounters.
Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek, seeded sixth, went down 2-6, 6-4, 1-6 to the 11th seeded pair of Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez in the third round of men's doubles.
In the mixed doubles, Paes and Cara, seeded third, lost 4-6, 6-4, 8-10, to Abigail Spears and Santiago Gonzalez in the quarter-finals.
