Sania in doubles semis

Sania Mirza and her American partner Bethanie Mattek stunned formidable Taipei duo of Yung-Jan Chan and Chia-Jung Chuang to book a semi-final berth at the 2,100,000 Pacific Life Open WTA championships.

The Indo-US combine prevailed 7-5, 4-6, 11-9 in a gruelling quarter-final encounter. Chuang and Chan are world number nine and 10 while Sania and Mattek stand at 25 and 36 in the WTA charts, respectively. They next take on the Chinese third-seed pair of Zi Yan and Jie Zheng, who defeated the Czech-Polish combine of Iveta Benesova and Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-4 .

Meanwhile, the Indian challenge ended in the men8217;s event with the defeat of Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles losing their quarter-final match 3-6, 4-6 to Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram of Israel.

Nadal avenged

RAFAEL Nadal came back to win the final five games and beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Wednesday in an intense, crowd-pleasing rematch of their Australian Open semi-final. Nadal, the defending Indian Wells champion, avenged his lopsided loss in Melbourne with a scrappy 6-7 4, 7-6 3 7-5 victory in the fourth round of the Pacific Life Open.