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Sports Reporter
TOP Zimbabwean female tennis player Cara Black and partner Sania Mirza from India are through to the semi-finals of the season-ending WTA Tour Finals in Singapore after surviving a tense match tie-breaker against Americans Abigail Spears and Raquel Kops-Jones on Thursday night.
Seeded third in the eight-team knock-out field, Black and Mirza got off to a fine start winning the first set against their American opponent. But Spears and Kops-Jones leveled the match by winning the second set 6-2.

In the deciding tie-break, it was Black and Mirza who went up an early break and built a 9-5 lead, earning four matchpoints. But Spears and Kops-Jones saved each one of them and then went up 10-9 to earn a match point of their own.

Black and Mirza, who have won two WTA titles this year, held their nerves to save the matchpoint as they won the next three points to win the match 6-3, 2-6, 12-10.

Black and Mirza now enter the semi-finals where they will meet the winner of yesterday’s quarter-final between Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci and Kveta Peschke/Katrina Srebotnik.

Su-Wei Hsieh and Shuai Peng will play Alla Kudryavtseva and Anastasia Rodionova in the other semi-final.
The win assures the Black and Mirza pair of 690 WTA ranking points each. This is the first time that Mirza has qualified for the season-ending WTA Tour Finals in her career. As Black is due to retire at the end of this year , this tournament is a perfect opportunity for Mirza to provide a perfect send off present to her partner.

Mirza will partner Chinese Taipei’s Su-Wei Hsieh from next year.
For the first time in the 44 years history of WTA Finals, a city in Asia Pacific region is hosting the prestigious year-end tournament.