Sania-Bethanie enter women's doubles quarters

New York: Sania Mirza had a rollercoaster day at the US Open as she advanced to the quarter-finals of women's doubles with an upset win over former champions Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur but crashed out of the mixed event after a straight-set loss in the last-eight stage at the Flushing Meadows in New York .

Sania and her American partner Bethanie Mattek rallied to shock the second seeded American-Australian pair 2-6, 7-5, 7-5 on Monday.

The unseeded Indo-American duo will next take on fifth seeds Yung-Jan Chan and Chia-Jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei for a place in the semi-finals.

However, Sania's campaign came to a halt in the mixed doubles event. Sania and Mahesh Bhupathi were outplayed 4-6, 1-6 by the Belarussian pair of Victoria Azarenka and Max Mirnyi.

But Leander Paes made sure that the Indian challenge continued in the mixed competition. Paes and his American team-mate Meghann Shaughnessy beat local favourites Ashley Harkeroad and Justin Gimelstob 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the semi-finals.

They will now be up against the British-American pair of Jamie Murray and Liezel Huber, who defeated Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska and Mariusz Fyrstenberg 6-1, 6-2.

Sania and Bethanie's win over the 2005 champions was the highlight of the women's doubles event on Monday.

The Indo-American pair had its back against the wall as Raymond and Stosur broke them thrice to clinch the opening set in just half an hour.

But the momentum shifted in the second set as Sania started to return with more pace and also exhibited better strokeplay at the nets.

Egged on by a partisan crowd, Sania and Bethanie finally got a break of serve at 5-5 and served out to even the match.

The decider could have gone either way as there were seven breaks of serve with both sides struggling to hold serve.

Sania had an opportunity to close out the match while serving at 5-4 but she was broken.

However, that hardly made any difference as Raymond and Stosur once again lost their serve, giving Bethanie the chance to end the match.

Sania and Bethanie did not miss the opportunity this time and held serve to advance.

"We really played solid in the second and third sets," an exuberant Bethanie said at the post-match press conference.