PTI
New York, Sep 5: Leander Paes and Meghann Shaughnessy fought back from a set down to beat Liezel Huber of USA and Jamie Murray of Britain and storm into the finals of the mixed doubles competition of US Open here.
The Indo-US pair came through a gruelling semi-final encounter to score a 6-7 (4) 7-6 (5) 10-5 win. They set up a clash with Victoria Azarenka and Max Mirnyi of Belarus in the finals. Azarenka and Mirnyi got the better of Zi Yan of China and Mark Knowles of Bahamas 7-6 (5) 6-4 in the other semi-final.
Meanwhile, Sania Mirza and her partner Bethanie Mattek of US crashed out in the quarterfinals, losing 3-6 6-3 6-4 to Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia-Jung of Chinese-Taipei. Paes will be aiming at his eighth Grand Slam win of his career.
Paes, along with Martin Damm, won the men's doubles title here last time, but the Indo-Czech pair was ousted in the very first round this year. That was Paes's last win in a Grand Slam. He has so far won four men's doubles title- three of which came alongside Mahesh Bhupathi- and three mixed doubles crown.
His first mixed doubles title came with Lisa Raymond as partner in Wimbledon 1999, and thereafter he won twice with Martina Navratilova in 2003-- Wimbledon and Australian Open.