Paes-Navratilova in semis

Defending champions Leander Paes and Martina Navratilova continued their march towards a second successive title after clinching a thrilling quarter-final victory over Australia's Paul Hanley and Trudi Musgrave in the mixed doubles at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne on Wednesday.

The fourth seeds were stretched to the wire by the local pair but put to use all their experience to carve out a 6-3, 3-6, 10-7 victory via the super-tiebreak and book a place in the last four.

In the semi-finals, Paes and Navratilova will face the unseeded pair of Jonathan Erlich of Israel and Liezel Huber of South Africa, who upset top seeds Mark Knowles of Bahamas and Virginia Ruana Pascual of Spain 6-7(6/8), 6-3, 7-6(7/5) in the round of eight.

In the junior section, Indians had a mixed day as Karan Rastogi advanced to the third round in the boys' singles, but Sanaa Bhambri was forced to bite the dust in the girls' event.

Top Indian junior and fourth seed Rastogi had no problems in packing off local boy Miles Kasiri 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the third round of the year's first Grand Slam.

He will now take on Chu-Huan Yi of Chinese Teipei.

But Sanaa, making her first appearance in the Grand Slam event, could hardly pose a threat to the eighth seeded Sun Sheng Nan of China and lost 0-6, 5-7.

Sanaa's challenge in the girls' doubles, where she paired with Indonesian Ayu Fani Damayanti, also came to an end. The pair lost to third seeds Marina Erakovic of New Zealand and Ekaterina

Kosminskaya of Russia 2-6, 0-6 in the first round.

In the boys' doubles, the seventh seeded pair of Rastogi and Divij Sharan were knocked out by unseeded Thomas Liversage of South Africa and Tonci Peric of Croatia 4-6, 7-5, 6-0 in the first round.

Tushar Liberhan and Weerapat Doakmaiklee of Thailand moved into the second round with a hard fought 1-6, 7-6(7/4), 6-2 victory over Luis Diaz Barriga of Mexico and Maciej Sykut of the United States.

They now play the top seeded American pair of Brendan Evans and Scott Oudesma.