Two rip-roaring quarterfinal match-ups and a 300th career win for Stanislas Wawrinka were what it took for the much beleaguered, injury hit Aircel Chennai Open to finally spring to life.
The day also marked the end of the Indian challenge in both singles and doubles.
Edouard Roger Vasselin overcame Dudi Sela 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-0 to set up a semifinal clash with Marcel Granollers who defeated the fourth seeded Benoit Paire 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(5).
The other semifinal will see top seed Wawrinka play Canada’s Vasek Pospisil, after they recorded victories over Aljaz Bedene (6-2, 6-1) and Yuki Bhambri (6-3, 6-3) respectively.
It was a pity that two of the most entertaining matches were pushed to the side courts, especially the Paire-Granollers tie which saw the fans scale the high-rise buildings near the court and also the spiral staircase on the Centre Court stands to catch the action.
After splitting the first two sets, Paire took what seemed like an unassailable 5-1 lead. He thought he had done enough to push Granollers off the cliff.
But, Granollers refused to go tumbling down; he dug his heels in and worked his way up.
A game knee didn’t help Paire. The crowd chanted ‘let’s go Benoit, let’s go’ in unison, but it failed to lift the Frenchman as he lost a third chance to serve out the match at 6-5.
This necessitated a tie-break which Granollers took 7-5.
No repeat
Wawrinka ensured that there was no repeat of last year’s quarterfinal, when he had lost to Bedene, apparently disturbed by a couple of poor calls. While the scoreline was flattering, it was a workout that the top seed would not have minded.
Bedene made him earn his points, running down balls and making him hit that one more shot in most of the rallies. However, Wawrinka was able to shift gears when pushed. His backhand failed on occasion but it was right on the money when it mattered the most: on game points in the fourth, fifth and sixth games of the second set.
Bedene’s serve let him down; he held only once right through the match. It took him five games to even get on the board. With Wawrinka serving for the first set at 5-0, the Slovene converted a break point with fantastic on-the-run forehand pass.
That was to prove his finest moment of the match.
The Bhambri-Pospisil match was equally one sided. A solitary break in the first set, and breaks in the opening and closing games of the second helped the Canadian clinch the match.
“I gave him early breaks and leads in both sets,” Bhambri said. “That made the difference. I matched him at the baseline but often over hit my shots. I also didn’t take too many chances and just stuck to what I knew.”
In doubles, wild-cards Karen Khachanov and Saketh Myneni, who had upset top seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam ul-Haq Qureshi 7-5, 2-6, 12-10 in the quarterfinals late on Thursday night, lost to Johan Brunstrom and Frederik Nielsen 6-4, 6-3.
R. Ramkumar and Sriram Balaji lost too, falling 6-3, 6-3 to to Croatia’s Marin Draganja and Mate Pavic.
No comments:
Post a Comment