CINCINNATI, OH, USA - Doubles co-world No.1s Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik suffered their second premature loss in a row on Friday. The Wimbledon champions - who had won three tournaments on the trot before dropping their second round opener at Toronto last week - were beaten by unseeded Natalie Grandin and Vladimira Uhlirova in the semis of the Western & Southern Open, 61 64.

Although the top-ranked team registered a slightly higher percentage of first serves and didn't issue any double faults, Grandin and Uhlirova enjoyed greater success on their opponent's first serve: they won 47% of such points, while conceding just 31% on their own first serves. This set them up to make the most of their opportunities, converting four of six break points while fending off all but one of the break points faced.

With their win, Grandin and Uhlirova, currently ranked No.36 and No.37 in the world, move through to their fourth final of the season - but first on hardcourts and first at the Premier level.

In Sunday's final the experienced South African-Czech duo will be gunning for their first title together, having finished runner-up at the International-level clay court events at Barcelona, Strasbourg and Budapest in 2011, and on hardcourts at Seoul last year. They have lifted a trophy together, though, at the ITF event at Nassau earlier in the year.

Their rivals for the trophy will be last year's Wimbledon champions, Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova. The No.3 seeds continued preparations for their US Open title defense with a 62 minute dispatch of Ekatarina Makarova and Zheng Jie, 61 63.