Sania Mirza and her Chinese partner Shuai Peng

Indian tennis star Sania Mirza and her Chinese partner Shuai Peng advanced to the women?s doubles semi-finals at the US Open after defeating Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova in a close two-set battle.

The fourth-seeded Indo-Chinese pair edged past the fifth-seeded Hungarian-Czech duo 7-6 (5), 6-4 in the quarter-final which lasted one hour and 56 minutes.

After being ranked as high as number one at the beginning of the year, Sania had failed to progress beyond the third round in the three previous Slams this year, where she played with three different partners.

Sania has now reached the semi-finals in four of her last five appearances at the US Open, with her best display coming in 2015 when she won the title with Hingis.

Sania and Peng now face second seeds Martina Hingis and Yung-Jan Chan, the pair which had defeated Sania and her Belgian partner Kirsten Flipkens at the Wimbledon.