Russia's Elena Vesnina and India's Leander Paes battled through to the Australian Open final in the mixed doubles on Friday, downing Italian pair Roberta Vinci and Daniele Bracciali in the semifinal in a tie break.

The Italians took a close first set before Vesnina and Paes breezed the second and hung on in the first-to-ten tiebreak to take the match 5-7, 6-2, (10-7).

The fifth seeds take on Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States and Horia Tecau of Romania, playing as the sixth seeds, in Sunday's finals.

Vesnina is the fourth Russian to make a final in Melbourne after Maria Sharapova won her singles semifinal over Czech Petra Kvitova on Thursday and Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva won the doubles title Friday, beating Italians Vinci and Sara Errani.