Seeking a hat-trick of title triumph, Stanislas Wawrinka cruised into the singles semifinals of Aircel Chennai Open tennis with a straight sets 6-4, 6-4 victory over Garcia lopez of Spain here on Friday.
In the day’s other quarterfinal, third seeded Benoit Paire also scored a straight sets win, beating Italian qualifier Thomas Fabbiano 6-4 7-5. World number 4 Wawrinka, from Switzerland, will take on Paire in the last-four clash on Saturday.
Wawrinka needed 77 minutes to see off the challenge of Spaniard lopez.
leaving aside the 8th game in which Wawrinka made three unforced errors, the Swiss was in total control, winning eight straight points from 4-4 to close the set 6-4 in 53 minutes.
Wawrinka came up with superb returns and his defensive forehands were perfectly executed, the highlight being the fourth game when he followed up a big serve with a perfect volley before earning a break point in the fifth. Keeping up the momentum, Wawrinka broke lopez in the seventh game before sealing the match in his favour.
Ramkumar’s fairytale run ends
A marauding Ramkumar Ramanathan dished out yet another commendable performance, albeit in a losing cause as he exited from Chennai Open after an intensly-fought singles quarterfinal against world number 45 Aljaz Bedene, hereon Friday.
The gritty Indian youngster gave a terrific fight to a top-50 player and saved four match points before losing 7-6(5), 4-6, 3-6, battling hard for two hours and 13 minutes against Britain’s number two player.