ByAnonymous, Anonymous
Sott Lipsky remains on course to win the second grand slam of his career after reaching the semi-finals of the Mixed Doubles competition at the Australian Open.
Having won the same event at the French Open in 2011 with Casey Dellacqua, Lipsky and Jie Zheng of China were the first pairing to make the last four.
Shahar Peer is keen to continue her partnership with Spain’s Silvia Soler-Espinosa following a strong run in the Ladies Doubles event.
A first-round casualty in the Ladies Singles, the Israeli star provided some positive moments for her fans. Few expected the newly formed duo to make it beyond the first round, but they went on a three-game winning streak before going out against the eighth seeds.
Peer and Soler-Espinosa made their mark on the tournament with victory over the second seeds. Their exit on Tuesday came against Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears.
"Given this was our first tournament playing together, we’ve done well to reach the quarter-finals — especially when you look at the quality of opponents we faced in the earlier rounds."
Peer’s success was all the more welcome after the surprise first-round exit of former Australian Open Men’s Doubles champions Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram. The Israelis went down 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 to Italian Daniele Bracciali and Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov.
Report by Josh Landy in Melbourne