leander Paes kept himself in line for his 15th Grand Slam title by reaching the Australian Open mixed doubles final with Martina Hingis but Sania Mirza bowed out with Bruno Soares after losing the semifinal, here on Friday. The seventh seeded Indo-Swiss pair recorded a comfortable 7-5, 6-4 win over the unseeded Taipei-Uruguay combine of Su-Wei Hsieh and Pablo Cuevas in the first semifinal which lasted one hour and 14 minutes.
The third seed pair of Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor prevented a summit clash featuring two Indians, as they knocked out the top seeded pair of Sania and Soares 3-6 6-2 10-8 in the second semifinal. Paes and Hingis broke Hsieh, who till recently was ranked world number one, thrice in the match. The 41-year-old Paes has won eight men’s doubles and six mixed doubles title in his glittering career. He has joined forces with Hingis for the first time in his career.