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Sania Mirza and Shuai Peng reach US Open semis

India's Sania Mirza reached her first Grand Slam semifinal of the 2017 season with Shuai Peng after edging past Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova in a close two-set battle at the US Open.

The fourth seeded pair dispatched the fifth seed duo 7-6 (5) 6-4 in the quarter-final which lasted one hour and 56 minutes.


It was one of this season's best performances for Sania at the Majors having gone out in the third rounds of the Australian Open and the Wimbledon and first round at the French Open.

Sania and Peng now face second seeds Martina Hingis and Yung-Jan Chan, the pair who had defeated the Indian and her Belgian partner Kirsten Flipkens at Wimbledon.

Sania has played with different partners at the Grand Slams this season. She had started the season by teaming up with Barbora Strycova. They had lost in the third round of the Australian Open to Eri Hozumi and Miyu Kato.

At Roland Garros she played with Yaroslava Shvedova and lost to Daria Gavrilova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the opening round.

This season Sania has managed to win only one title - the Brisbane WTA event with American Bethanie Mattek-Sands - and ended up finalist in Sydney with Strycova.

This is in complete contrast to her stupendous show in the 2016 season, during which she won eight titles, including five with Swiss great Martina Hingis.

She had ended the 2016 year as number one but has now slipped to number nine as she struggled to find a consistent partner after splitting with Hingis.

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