India’s Sania Mirza made her first Grand Slam semifinal of the 2017 season with Shuai Peng after beating Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova in a two-set battle at the US Open.
The fourth seed Indo-Chinese sent the fifth seeded Hungarian-Czech combo 7-6 (5) 6-4 in the quarterfinals that lasted an hour and 56 minutes.
It is the best performance of the season for Sania in the Major Leagues, as they fell in the third round of the Australian Open and Wimbledon, while at the French Open had made a first round exit.
Sania and Peng now face second seeds Martina Hingis and Yung-Jan Chan, the pair who had defeated the Indian and his Belgian teammate Kirsten Flipkens at Wimbledon.
Sania has played with different partners in the Grand Slam this season. She had started the season teaming with Barbora Strycova. They had lost in the third round of the Australian Open to Eri Hozumi and Miyu Kato.
In the Roland Garros played with Yaroslava Shvedova and lost to Daria Gavrilova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the first round.
This season Sania has managed to win only one title – Brisbane WTA event with American Bethanie Mattek-Sands – and finished runner-up in Sydney with Strycova.
This is in stark contrast to his superb show in the 2016 season, during which he won eight titles, including five with Switzerland’s Martina Hingis.
She had ended the year 2016 as number one, but now she has fallen to number nine when she struggled to find a consistent partner after splitting with Hingis.
