Melbourne: India's Leander Paes and his Swiss partner Martina Hingis crashed out of the mixed doubles competition of the Australian Open with a straight-set defeat in the quarter finals here on Thursday.

Paes and Hingis lost 3-6, 2-6 to the local pair of Sam Groth and Samantha Stosur in a quarter-final match that lasted 55 minutes.

The Australian duo dominated the match and broke serve of the Indo-Swiss combination in the fifth game to nose ahead before sealing the first set 6-3 with another service break.

In the second set, Paes and Hingis were broken in the fourth game to trail 1-3. The Indo-Swiss pair were 2-5 down when Hingis served only to be broken by the Australians, who sealed the match comfortably.

In the semi-finals, Groth and Stosur will meet the second-seeded combo of India's Sania Mirza and Ivan Dodig of Croatia on Friday.

Meanwhile, Zeel Desai lost to Elena Rybakina of Russia 4-6 3-6 in the quarter finals of the junior girls' singles.

Sania and Dodig, on Wednesday, had fought off a stiff challenge from the unseeded pair of Rohan Bopanna and Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada. They had won 6-4, 3-6, 12-10 in one hour and seven minutes.

For Sania and Bopanna that match must have been interesting, to be facing each other rather than playing as a team. The duo had represented India in mixed doubles at the 2016 Rio Olympics where they finished fourth, losing the bronze medal play-off tie.

It was a close match, with both the pairs matching each other stroke by stroke, especially during the match tie-break. Bopanna and Dabrowski, in fact, hit the most winners in the match, 32 in total compared to 19 by Sania and Dodig.

However, Sania and Dodig's experience together came in handy as they won points at crucial junctures to seal the match and progress to the semi-finals. (Agencies)