India's Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza made it to the mixed doubles semi-finals at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Tuesday.
They first stunned the second seeded US-Swedish pair of Lisa Raymond and Simon Aspelin 6-3, 2-6, 10-7 in the second round to enter the quarter-finals, and then advanced a round further thanks to a walkover from their quarter-final opponents, seventh seeds Kveta Peschke and Martin Damm, who had beaten Galina Voskoboeva and Frantisek Cermak 6-1, 6-1 in their second round match.
While Sania bowed out of singles and doubles, Bhupathi and partner Mark Knowles of the Bahamas, will take on top seeds Mike and Bob Bryan of the US in the quarter-finals of the men's doubles on Wednesday.
On Monday, Davis Cup captain Leander Paes pulled out of the mixed following an ankle injury, sustained during his second round defeat in the men's doubles match against fellow-Indian Rohan Bopanna and the United States' Rajeev Ram.
Paes and Hungarian Agnes Szavay had to concede their second round match to Taiwan's Chuang Chia-jung and Jonathan Erlich of Israel.
In the boys' singles, Yuki Bhambri kept the Indian flag flying by advancing to the third round, while curtains were drawn on Karunuday Singh's campaign.
Eighth seeded Bhambri rallied to beat Slovakia's Zalan Klempa 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 in his second round match and will take on Japan's Tadayuki Loughi in the pre-quarter-finals.
Karunuday went down fighting 6-7(4-7), 4-6 to Tsung-Hua-Yang of Chinese Taipei in the same round.
