Sania in sight of seventh major title

MELBOURNE: Sania Mirza shrugged off delivering two double faults at crucial junctures to move into the mixed doubles final with Croatian

Ivan Dodig

at the

Australian Open

on Friday, putting herself in line for a seventh Grand Slam crown.

“I was serving ok, just those couple of double faults. But that’s how it is. Me and Ivan are a good team, we stay positive and fight. We support each other when the chips are down,” Mirza said after the Indo-Croatian pair defeated the Aussie pairing of Samantha Stosur and

Sam Groth

6-4, 2-6, 10-5 in the semifinals.

“We just tried to be solid. We know they have a lot of power, and both serve solid. We had to trust our instincts. Our strength is our return. We just had to trust we will get a chance, and we did,” she added.

“At 2-5 (serving to stay in the second set), I went for it. Even if I hold, Groth was serving next. Chances of him making couple of double faults is pretty small. He was serving at 125 (mph) plus and even if I predict where he is going, it’s tough for a woman to pick it up.”

After the local favourites won the second set, Mirza and Dodig, 32, won six points in a row in the super tiebreak to run away with the match.

“At 2-3, we won two points on Groth’s serve. That’s huge in mixed (doubles), to win two consecutive points on a guy who serves as really well as Sam does,” Mirza said.

“That kind of set the momentum, and Ivan served two huge serves. Under pressure we really played well.”

In the final, the Indo-Croatian pair will take on American Abigail Spears and Juan Sebastian Cabal of Colombia who beat Elina Svitolina of Ukraine and Aussie Chris Guiccione 7-6 (1), 6-2.

It will be Mirza’s fifth final at the Australian Open. She was runner-up with Mahesh Bhupathi in 2008 and the pair triumphed the following year.

She was again runner-up in 2014 with Horia Tecau and clinched the doubles title with Martina Hingis last year.

Dodig, a 2015 French Open doubles champion, and Mirza narrowly lost the French Open crown last year 6-4, 4-6, 8-10 to Martina Hingis and Leander Paes.