Australian Open: Mirza-Hingis put on a dominating display to reach the final

australian_openThe match started with Martina Hingis and Karolina Pliskova being engaged in an intriguing baseline battle, and Mirza showing fantastic movement at the net. Hingis though, came under a lot of pressure on her serve and a double fault at 0-30, gave their opponents three break points to make it 2-1. The Swiss managed to defend all three, to take it to deuce, before she made another double fault. Eventually, an unforced error from Pliskova and some fantastic net-play from Hingis took the game away from the Czech-German pair. They would not win another game in the match.

The Indo-Swiss pair broke Julia Goerges' serve in the fourth game, before Mirza consolidated the lead to 4-1 with some fantastic serving.

Mirza started to dominate the match at this point, and she produced two trademark forehand winners to break Pliskova's serve, before Hingis served out the first set at 6-1. This was the first set that Pliskova and Goerges had dropped in their run to the semis, and it was largely due to the numerous unforced errors they had made by that point.

Mirza and Hingis broke Pliskova's serve in the opening game of the second set. The Indian star produced winners after winners, and Julia Goerges in particular, was struggling to cope with Mirza's power at the nets.

Mirza consolidated the break on her serve, before breaking Goerges again, in the third game. The Indo-Swiss pair found their rhythm and, in this phase of the game, were returning everything their opponents threw at them. Pliskova and Goerges were forced to go for early winners, which only created more unforced errors.

Mirza and Hingis will now face the seventh-seeded Czech pair of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, who won 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 against the 15th seeded Chinese pair of Yi-Fan Xu and Saisai Zheng in the other semi-final.

Earlier today, third-seeded Rohan Bopanna and Yung-Jan Chan were knocked out in their quarter-final fixture against Andreja Klepac and Treat Huey. The Indo-Chinese pair lost 2-6, 5-7 in a match which lasted only 55 minutes, concluding the Australian Open for Bopanna. Philippines-born Treat Huey appears to have his number in this tournament, as he along with Max Mirnyi, knocked out Bopanna in the men's doubles as well.