UNI
Amelia Island, Florida, Apr 9: Sania Mirza and her South African partner Liezel Huber upset second seed US-Spanish pair of Meghann Shaughnessy and Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-4, 6-4 to advance into the finals of the 600,000-dollar Bausch and Lomb tennis championship here.
The straight set victory came in just over one and a half hour and has given Sania a chance to win her first WTA title this year.
Sania and Huber will take on the Japanese-Slovenian pair of Shinobu Asagoe and Katarina Srebotnik in the finals, who moved ahead after their opponents -- the Czech-Italian pair of Kveta Peschke and Francesca Schiavone -- retired in the third set.
The Indo-South African pair had it surprisingly easy against their seeded rivals, who could not break them even once during the match.
Sania and Huber stood up to Shaughnessy and Pascual from the very start and broke them once in the first set. The second seeds also had their share of chances but failed to convert any of them and lost the set 4-6 to Sania-Huber.
The Indo-South African pair came into the second set with renewed confidence after sealing the first and broke Shaughnessy and Pascual again. Shaughnessy and Pascual were clearly out of sorts after losing the opening set and failed to grab their chances once again to go down to Sania and Huber.