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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
CARA Black’s dreams of winning her second Australian Open mixed doubles titles went up in smoke when she lost in the quarter-finals of the first Grand Slam of the year in Melbourne yesterday.

According to reports from Melbourne, Zimbabwe women’s tennis legend Black and her Colombian partner Juan Sebastian Cabal, who were seeded fifth in the mixed doubles at this year’s Australian Open, came unstuck in the last eight yesterday, going down to the third-seeded pair Kristina Mladenovic of France and Canada’s Daniel Nestor who beat them in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.

The match lasted 57 minutes.

It first took Mladenovic and Nestor 28 minutes to win the opening set and wrapped up the second and win the match in 29 minutes to set up a semi-final tie against top seeds Sania Mirza of India and Brazil’s Bruno Soares who beat Australians Cassey Dellacqua and John Peers 6-2, 6-2 in the other quarter-final tie.

Black, who turns 35 on February 17, also came short in the women’s doubles competition at this year’s Australian Open where she partnered China’s Saisai Zheng and the pair lost in the opening round to Canada’s Gabriela Drabowski and Alicja Rosolska of Poland 6-1, 6-4.

Black and Zheng were playing together for the first time on the road in Melbourne this year.