Mirza-Black enter Portugal Open semis

Oeiras (Portugal), May 1 (IANS) Top seeds Sania Mirza and Cara Black progressed to the $250,000 Portugal Open women's doubles semi-finals by overcoming the Spanish-Chinese pair of Silvia Soler-Espinosa and Shuai Zhang here Thursday.

The Indian-Zimbabwean combine won 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and 10 minutes on the clay courts of Sports Complex of Jamor.

Though Silvia and Shuai broke their opponents once in the first set, the top seeds responded by converting two of the seven break points they earned.

The second set turned out to be even more difficult to hold on to service games as there were a total of five service breaks. But the Indian-Zimbabwean duo got the significant break needed to clinch the set and match.

In the next round, Sania and Cara will take on American third seeds Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond for a place in the summit clash.

Somdev Devvarman and Purav Raja/Divij Sharan play their respective men's singles and men's doubles matches later in the day.