Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna progressed to the mixed doubles semifinals at the Australian Open on Tuesday after the Latvian-Spanish duo of Jelena Ostapenko and David Vega Hernandez, the Indian pair’s opponents in the last-eight fixture, gave a walkover.
Earlier in the day, Ostapenko had lost her singles quarterfinal 2-6, 4-6 to reigning Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.
Sania and Rohan had begun their campaign with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over local wildcards Jaimee Fourlis and John Peers before beating Uruguay’s Ariel Behar and Japan’s Makoto Ninomiya, 6-4, 7-6 (9) in the pre-quarterfinals on Monday.
Sania’s run in women’s doubles along with Kazakhstan’s Anna Danilina ended in the second round.
The 36-year-old Sania, who is set to retire from the sport after next month’s Dubai Masters, won the mixed doubles crown in Melbourne with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi in 2009. She further went on to win five more Grand Slams, two of which came in mixed doubles.
With Rohan, she has previously played mixed doubles once at French Open (2011) and twice at Wimbledon (2011, 2021) with the pair’s best result together being a quarterfinal-finish at the All England Club in 2011. They did, however, finish fourth at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
