Bopanna-Babos in mixed semis

Melbourne: Rohan Bopanna and his Hungarian partner Timea Babos entered the semi-finals of the Australian Open mixed doubles event with a comfortable victory in Melbourne, on Wednesday.

The fifth-seeded pairing of Bopanna and Babos beat the unseeded pair of Juan Sebastian Cabal from Colombia and Abigail Spears of the US 6-4, 7-5 (5) in the quarterfinal duel. It was a hard-fought encounter as Bopanna and Babos had to dig deep to squeeze out the win. In fact, Cabal and Spears had the better break point conversion rate, utilising three out of the seven that came their way as against Bopanna and Babos' 4:12 record.

But Bopanna and Babos kept a steady lead throughout the duel and managed to score more winners in both their first and second serves to eke out the victory. In the end the Indo-Hungarian duo won 73 points as against their rivals' 68.

Bopanna and Babos will take on the winners of the other quarterfinal between Australian duo of Storm Sanders and Marc Polmans and Spanish-Brazilian combination of Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and Marcelo Demoliner in the semi-finals.

Bopanna remains the only Indian in title contention at the Australian Open. Leander Paes, Purav Raja, Divij Sharan and Bopanna himself lost in the third round of the men's doubles competition on Monday.