India’s tennis sensation Sania Mirza alongwith her American partner Bethany Mattek fought hard to score a sensational victory over formidable Taipei duo of Yung-Jan Chan and Chia-Jung Chuang advancing into the semifinals of the $2,100,000 Pacific Life Open WTA championships in Indian Wells, USA.
The Indo-US duo combined well to get past the higher ranked Taipei pair 7-5 4-6 11-9 in an intriguing quarterfinal tussle on Wednesday night. Ranked 9th and 10th respectively in the World Chuang and Chan lost to Sania and Mattek who stand much below at 25 and 36 places respectively in the WTA charts.
Sania, who is nursing a wrist injury and already suffered a defeat in the singles due to that injury, set her injury aside and came up with some fighting performance to notch up a stunning win.
The Sania-Mattek duo faced some stiff resistance from their Taipei counterparts. After pocketing the first tough set with a 7-5 score they lost their second set quite easily as the formidable Chuang and Chan bounced back to draw level claiming the set 6-4 in their favour.
But the Indo-US duo kept their spirited performance and resisted hard to clinch the intriguing decider 11-9 in their favour to seal the fate of the opponents. The final set settled in 20 games.
Sania and Mattek will now fight it out with third-seed Chinese pair of Zi Yan and Jie Zheng, who comprehensively defeated Czech-Polish duo of Iveta Benesova and Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0 6-4 in their last eight match.
Meanwhile, Indian men’s double challenge came to an end in USD 3,589,000 Master Series event after Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Mark Knowles lost their quarterfinal clash in straight sets.
The sixth seed Indo-Bahamas duo lost their last eight stage match 3-6 4-6 to fourth seeds Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram of Israel. Leander Paes and his Australian partner Paul Hanley had already ousted in the quarterfinals.
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