Sania-Nuria storm into Beijing final

Sania Mirza and her Spanish partner Nuria Llagostera Vives defeated sixth seeds Slovak-Chinese pair of Katarina Srebotnik and Jie Zheng 7-5, 6-1 to book a place in the women's doubles final of the China Open yesterday.

The fifth seeds will face Russian third seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, who beat fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova 6-4, 7-5 in the other semifinal.u00a0

Sania Mirza

Bops-Hesh crash out
Meanwhile, the Indian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Mahesh Bhupathi were defeated 2-6, 6-7 (8) by Carlos Berlocq of Argentina and Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the second round of the men's doubles event.

Novak, Li in semis
World No 2 Novak Djokovic raced into the last four with a
6-1, 6-2 win over Austrian Jurgen Melzer as home favourite Li Na set up a testing women's semi-final with Russian Maria Sharapova in the women's draw. Li beat defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-4, 6-2 to join Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka in the last four.
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