Paes-Cara storms into Australian Open final

Leander-PaesIndia's Leander Paes and his Zimbabwean partner Cara Black have entered into the final of the mixed doubles event of the first grand slam of the year, Australian Open at the Melbourne Park on Friday.

The top seeded Indo-Zimbabwean pair survived from scare of Lisa Raymond of United States and Wesley Moodie of South Africa as Paes-Cara ousted their opponents 6-7 (6/8) 7-6 (7/5) 10-7 in the semifinal.

Paes-Cara lost the first set after it went to tie-breaker but they came back strongly and leveled the score by winning the second set. The third and final set went to super tie-breaker but Paes-Cara held their nerves to clinch the set and match.

Paes-Cara will now face Ekaterina Makarova of Russia and Jaroslav Levinsky of the Czech Republic in the grand finale. Ekaterina-Jaroslav duo defeated Italy's Flavia Pennetta and Brazil's Marcelo Melo 6-0, 4-6, 10-8 in the semifinal to move into the title round.

Meanwhile, Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy, seeded third, has crashed out after they went down to Ivo Karlovic of Croatia and Dusan Vemic of Serbia 3-6 4-6 in the quarterfinals of the men's doubles event.