Zeel Desai advances to Australian Open quarters

MELBOURNE:

Zeel Desai

advanced to the quarterfinals in girls' singles after her opponent, Serbian fifth seed

Olga Danilovic

retired injured while leading 5-3 in the first set at the

Australian Open

junior championships on Wednesday.

Danilovic was serving for the set at 15-30 in the ninth game when she fell down and hurt her hamstring. Nevertheless, the outcome earned Zeel a gift from her coach Todd Clark.

"Our goal at the start of the tournament was to reach the quarterfinals and we have done that," said a smiling Zeel, who's playing in her maiden junior slam main draw.

The 18-year-old Indian was broken twice while she could convert only one of the six breakpoints she forced on Danilovic.

Yet, Zeel found positives from her showing.

"In the previous rounds I was really nervous because of the crowd. This match, I found a way to be focussed, and I actually played well," she said.

In the boys' doubles, Siddhanth Banthia and Turkey's Kaya Gore went down to Finn Reynolds of New Zealand and Duarte Vale of Portugal 2-6, 5-7, ending the Indian lad's campaign at the Open.

In the mixed doubles of tournament proper, Sania Mirza got the better of her friend and rival Rohan Bopanna as she edged past her compatriot into the semifinals.

Mirza and Croatian Ivan Dodig saved four match points as they came through a tense super tiebreak to beat Bopanna and Canadia Gabriela Dabrowski 6-4, 3-6, 12-10 and replicate their last-four appearance at

Melbourne Park

last year.

Mirza and Dodig await the winners of the clash between Martina Hingis-Leader Paes and Aussies Samantha Stosur-Sam Groth.