Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic saw off Coco Gauff and Catherine McNally 6-2 6-4 to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open doubles tournament in Melbourne.
Babos and Mladenovic broke serve in the opening game at love. They reeled off the first ten points of the match and went up a double break before closing out the first set 6-2.
Babos and Mladenovic broke serve at love in the third game of the second set. They missed a match point on Gauff and McNally’s serve at 5-3 before converting on their fourth opportunity on their serve.
Babos and Mladenovic set up a semifinal match against sisters Chan Hao-Ching and Latisha Chan from China Taipei, who beat reigning US Open doubles champions Elise Mertens and Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (9-7) 6-2.
The Chan sisters fended off four break points at 4-4 in the opening set en route to the tie-break. The Chinese Taipei sisters earned the only mini-break to win the tie-break 9-7.
The Asian pair earned a double break to race out to a 3-0 lead. Mertens and Sabalenka pulled one of the two breaks back, but Chan Hao-Chin and Latisha Chan broke again in the seventh game and closed it out on their first match point.
Top seeds Hsieh-Su Wei and Barbora Strycova cruised past Jennifer Brady and Caroline Dolehide 6-2 6-2 setting up a semifinal match against Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, who came back from one set down to beat Gabriela Dabrowski and Jelena Ostapenko 3-6 6-2 6-3.
Dabrowski and Ostapenko earned an early break to open up a 3-0 lead. Krejcikova and Siniakova broke back in the seventh game for 3-4, but Dabrowski and Ostapenko got the second break to seal the opening set 6-3.
Krejcikova and Siniakova fended off the only break point they faced and broke twice to win the second set 6-2. After a trade of breaks in the third and fourth games Krejicikova and Siniakova earned the decisive break in the eighth game to win the third set.
