TENNIS/Hsieh, Zielinski reach mixed doubles semifinals at Wimbledon

Taipei, July 12 (CNA) Taiwan's Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Polish partner Jan Zielinski advanced to the mixed doubles semifinal at Wimbledon on Thursday in a tight battle that ended in a super tiebreaker.

The seventh-seeded duo, who won the Australian Open mixed doubles title earlier this year and reached the semifinals of the French Open, needed 125 minutes to beat Britain's Jamie Murray and American Taylor Townsend 7-6, 6-7 [10-5].

Hsieh and Zielinski took the first set with a 7-2 win in the tiebreaker and seemed poised to close out the match in the second set tiebreaker when they took a 4-0 lead.

With the Taiwan-Poland duo just three points away from victory, however, Murray and Townsend pulled back and evened the match by winning the tiebreaker 9-7 on their third set point.

That momentum carried over to the deciding first-to-10 super-tiebreaker, when Murray and Townsped sped to a 5-2 lead, but Hsieh and Zielinski broke out of their funk with the help of a double fault by their opponents and eventually won 10-5.

They will next face Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe from New Zealand in the semifinals.

Hsieh has also reached the women's doubles semifinals at Wimbledon with partner Elise Mertens from Belgium. The top seeds in the tournament, they are scheduled to play Czech Katerina Siniakova and Townsend on Friday at about 8 p.m. (Taipei time) for a spot in the final.

Hsieh and Mertens won the women's doubles at the Australian Open in January but were ousted in the second round at the French Open.