Bhupathi, Sania reach Pilot Pen finals

NEW DELHI: Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza fought their way to the doubles finals of their respective events at the Pilot Pen Classic in New Haven, USA.

Though it was a straight-set victory for Bhupathi and his Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic, the going was not easy for the top seeds who managed a 7-5 7-6 (2) win over Eric Butorac of the US and Australian Ashley Fisher to book their berth in the men's doubles summit clash.

In the final, the Indo-Serbian pair will meet Polish duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski.

Fourth-seeded Fyrstenberg and Matkowski defeated Jordan Kerr of Australia and Jamie Murray of Britain 6-2 6-3.

Sania had even tougher a task at hand as the Hyderabadi along with Italian Mara Santangelo pipped second-seeded Kveta Peschke of Czech Republic and Rennae Stubbs of Australia 2-6, 6-3, 10-5 in the women's doubles semis.
   
The third-seeded Indo-Italian combination will take on top-seeded Zimbabwean Cara Black and Liezel Huber of the USA in the title clash.

In the semifinals, Black and Huber got past the Czech-USA pair of Iveta Benesova and Bethanie Mattek 4-6 6-0 10-5.