Sania-Santangelo in Pattaya Open semis

Pattaya, Thailand:

Sania Mirza and her Italian partner Mara Santangelo sailed past Russians Elena Bovina and Ksenia Pervak in straight sets to enter the doubles semifinals of the WTA Pattaya Open here on Wednesday.

The third seeded Indo-Italian duo, who got a first-round bye, defeated the unseeded Russians 6-4, 6-3 in one hour and nine minutes in quarterfinals of $220,000 hard-court event.

Sania and Santangelo will next meet winners of the other quarterfinal between Thai wildcards Nungnadda Wannasuk and Varatchaya Wongteanchai and the second-seeded Kazakh-Thai pairing of Yaroslava Shvedova and Tamarine Tanasugarn.

Sania and Santangelo broke their rivals in the second game itself, racing to a 4-1 lead but the Russians broke back to reduce the deficit to 4-5.

But the recovery came too late and the Indo-Italian duo wrapped up the first set in little over 30 minutes.

The second set did not start well for Sania and Santangelo who lost their serve in the first game itself. But the third seeds earned a couple of break points to win the very next game.

Sania and Santangelo broke their rivals in the eighth game to take a 5-3 lead before sealing the match.

Sania is through to second round of the singles as well.