Sania Mirza and Bethanie Mattek overcame a fighting Russian pair of Elena Vesnina and Vera Zvonareva to book a semi-final berth in the US $ 600,000 WTA East West Bank Classic tournament in Los Angeles.
The Indo-American pair, seeded second, pipped the Russian duo 6-3, 1-6, 10-8 in one hour and 14 minutes in the quarter-finals of the Tier II hard court event on Friday night.
Sania-Mattek did not drop their serve even once in the first set and converted two of the four breakpoints to take the lead.
However, they surprisingly lost the momentum and allowed Vesnina-Zvonareva combination to overpower them in the next.
The Indo-American dropped their serve thrice in the second set and squandered the only breakpoint also.
However, they got their elements together in the tiebreaker to prevail over the Russians and move to the last four stage, where they will face winner of the match between Eva Hrdinova/Vladimira Uhlirova and Ayumi Morita/Ai Sugiyama.
