(Sports) China's Zhang Shuai makes to Australian Open women's doubles semi-finals

MELBOURNE, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- For the first time in her career, China's Zhang Shuai has made it to the semi-final stage of the Australian Open women's doubles.

Pairing up with former world No. 1 and U.S. champion Sam Stosur, the Sino-Aussie combo continued their incredible run at the tournament on Tuesday, beating out Czech duo Katerina Siniakova and Barbora Krejcikova 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-4) in a hard-fought battle.

With a massive amount of support from local fans, the two have become a crowd favorite and have not dropped a set in the entire tournament.

"I think the match was very exciting because at one point we were 3-5 behind but we managed to get it to a tie break," Zhang told Xinhua after the match.

"This victory gives us a lot of confidence because this team won the French Open and Wimbledon last year."

The win now sets up a semi-final encounter against Marketa Vondrousova and Barbora Strycova -- another all-Czech duo.

"Each pair is very competitive at this stage of the tournament but hopeful we can play well and take the match to them," Zhang said.

"Win or lose I am very happy with this tournament, this is definitely the best Australian Open of my career."

"In singles I made it to the third round and now I'm in the semi-finals of the doubles. But of course I want to go even further," she said. Enditem