Melbourne: Leander Paes is in line to win two Grand Slam titles as he and Elena Vesnina reached the mixed doubles summit clash even as Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi bowed out after their semi-final defeat at the Australian Open on Friday.
Fifth seeds Paes and Vesnina came from behind to tame a fighting Italian pair of Roberta Vinci and Daniele Bracciali 5-7, 6-2, 10-7 in the semi-finals.
Paes has already made it to the men's doubles final with Czech partner Radek Stepanek and they face top seeds Americans Bob and Mike Bryan.
Meanwhile, the sixth-seeded Sania-Bhupathi's campaign ended after they lost 3-6, 3-6 to the eighth-seeded combo of Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States and Romania's Horia Tecau in just 68 minutes at the Rod Laver Arena.
Although the match was a closely-contested affair, the American-Romanian duo played better as far as the crucial points were concerned. The Indians, who won the title here in 2009, were poor on service returns as well and could hit only 17 winners as compared to 24 by their opponents.
In the opening set, the Indians managed to convert only only break-point out of the three that they got, besides losing their serve on two occasions to hand their opponents the advantage.
The second set was on serve till 3-3 but the eighth seeds broke Sania and Bhupathi to go up 4-3 and then held their serve to make it 5-3.
The Indians once again failed to keep their serve and the opponents claimed their second consecutive break to book a place in the final.
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