Martina Hingis moved closer to a first grand slam title since coming out of retirement after she and Leander Paes secured a place in the Australian Open mixed doubles final by beating Hsieh Su-Wei and Pablo Cuevas in straight sets.

The Swiss, who has won three singles and five doubles titles at Melbourne, returned to the game to play doubles in 2013 and has teamed up with the 41-year-old Indian Paes for the first time at this year’s Australian Open.

The seventh-seeded pair won their semi-final against their unseeded opponents 7-5, 6-4 in an hour and 14 minutes, recovering from a poor start in which Paes’s serve was broken in the second game of the match.

Hingis and Paes broke back to love in the seventh game and secured another break in the 11th to leave Hingis to serve out the set.

Hsieh was broken again early in the second set, which then progressed on serve as the seventh seeds secured a place in the final, where Paes will be looking for a seventh mixed doubles crown in a career in which he has also won eight doubles titles.