London: For top seeds Leander Paes and Cara Black, reaching the final of the Wimbledon mixed doubles event has literally been a cakewalk except for a third round encounter, where they were stretched to three sets.

Paes and Black, the reigning US Open champions, will take on ninth seeds Bahamian Mark Knowles and German partner Anna-Lena Groenefeld for the trophy Sunday, after the men’s singles final on Centre Court.

Paes is just a match from his 10th career Grand Slam. After their US Open win, the Indo-Zimbabwean duo have not met much success in the Grand Slams. They lost in the second round of both the Australian and the French Opens.

However, this is Paes’s second Grand Slam final on the trot after he won the men’s doubles at the French Open this year with partner Lukas Dlouhy. Paes has enjoyed considerable success in the mixed doubles event at the Championships.

In 1999, he won partnering Lisa Raymond and again in 2003 with Martina Navratilova. Personally, he will be aiming for a fifth mixed doubles trophy while Black will be playing for her fourth. Paes and Black’s road to the final has been pretty easy.

Receiving a bye in the first round and a walkover in the second, they ran into some resistance in the third against the Indian duo of Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza. In a match stretching to over 127 minutes, the top seeds finally defeated Mahesh-Sania 6-2, 6-7(2-7), 6-3.

They took 71 minutes to defeat 12th seeds Stephen Huss and Virginia Ruano Pascual in the last-four.