Chinese duo march through to Australian Open final

Jie Zheng, right, discuss with her partner Zi Yan before the match against Shinobu Asagoe of Japan and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia during women's doubles at the Australian Open Tennis Tournament in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan 24, 2006. Chinese pair won the match 6-2, 7-6 and reached the final game.

China's Yan Zi and Zheng Jie ended the hopes of Japan's Shinobu Asagoe and her Slovak partner Katarina Srebotnik to storm into the final of the Australian Open women's doubles today.

The 12th seeds came out on top of a second settiebreakto win 6-2, 7-6 (7/2) in 1 hr 25 mins on Margaret Court Arena and said they were improving match by match.

"We felt good in the first set but I think in the second set we were a little lucky," said Zheng.

The 22-year-old said she and Yan had gotten better as the tournament progressed and were ready to lift China's first ever grand slam title.

"We are not feeling any pressure at all," she said.

It is the Chinese pair's first grand slam final and caps a breakthrough 12 months in which they have won two doubles championships, at Hobart and Hyderabad last year, while reaching the quarter-finals of the US Open.

They reached the semi-final or better at seven tour events, cementing China's growing reputation as a force to be reckoned following Sun Tiantian and Li Ting's historic Olympic doubles gold at Athens in 2004.

They will play the winner of the clash between top seeds Lisa Raymond of the United States and Australian teammate Samantha Stosur and Germany's Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Meghann Shaughnessy of the United States, the fifth seeds.

The final is on Friday.

(Agencies)

tiebreak: （平局決勝制；搶七）