Sania a win away from third Grand Slam mixed doubles title

Meblourne, Jan 24 (IANS) India’s Sania Mirza and her Romanian partner Horia Tecau beat defending champions Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden of Australia to enter the final of the Australian Open mixed doubles final at the Melbourne Park Friday.

Sania and Tecau won 2-6, 6-3, 10-2 in an interesting contest against the Australian duo that lasted an hour and 13 minutes.

Sania and Tecau will face France’s Kristina Mladenovic and Canada’s Daniel Nestor in the final and is just a win away front what would be her third mixed doubles Grand Slam title.

For Sania and Tecau it was a come-from-behind win as they were completely outplayed in the first set. The Australian duo had 16 winners while Indo-Romanian pair managed eight. Sania and Tecau failed to win a single break point and for Gajdosova and Ebden it took just 28 minutes to win the opening set.

However, Sania and Tecau came back strongly in the second set. They managed to hold only to their serve and also converted the sole break point that came their way. The Australian pair committed nine unforced errors and Sania and Tecau had four. The Indo-Romanian duo also managed 15 winners while the Australians had seven.

Sania win the final, it will be her second mixed doubles title at the Australian Open. She had won the trophy back in 2009 with Mahesh Bhupathi.