Facing a must-win situation in order to keep his semifinal and title hopes alive at the World Tour Finals, Stan Wawrinka looked like a different player from the one who had been on display in his tournament opener. Wawrinka rebounded from a straight-set loss to Kei Nishikori by beating Marin Cilic 7-6(3), 7-6(3) on Wednesday night. The third-ranked Swiss fired seven aces without double-faulting and recorded 21 winners as he got the job done in one hour and 58 minutes.
Cilic was not without chances. The Croat had a set point in the opener with Wawrinka serving at 4-5, 30-40, but he shanked a backhand return. Cilic also led 2-0 in the second after breaking his opponent right off the bat, but he was broken back at 2-1.
In a showdown that featured consistently huge hitting from the baseline, Wawrinka had all the answers when it mattered most in the two tiebreakers.
“(It) was a great match,” Wawrinka assessed. “I’m really happy with the way I played in general. (It) was a tough match, for sure. In general, I think the level was really high. I’m happy with many things tonight–the way I was mentally on the court, the way I was moving…. I think I was moving great. I had some good defense (in) some long rallies. It’s a great victory for me.”
“I think overall I was playing quite well from the back when the ball was in play,” said Cilic. “I obviously had a little bit of trouble on my first serve. On the return, I was missing quite a lot of returns on the second serve. That was not giving me a chance to get in the rallies, especially as I felt that I was playing quite, quite good. In both sets I played pretty good tennis.”
Had Cilic prevailed, Wawrinka would have been eliminated, Andy Murray would have secured the seed out of Group A, and Cilic would have faced Nishikori on Friday for a spot in the semifinals. Now the scenarios are just about wide open heading into the quartet’s final day of round-robin competition, although Cilic cannot qualify for the weekend regardless of Friday’s results.
The situation is much clearer in Group A of the doubles event. Henri Kontinen and John Peers rolled over Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday afternoon to improve their record this week to 2-0. They clinched the top seed in their foursome when Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez held off Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut 7-5, 5-7, 10-8 during the night session.
Lopez and Lopez are now 1-1 along with Klaasen and Ram, and those two duos will clash on Friday with a semifinal spot on the line. Herbert and Mahut have been eliminated.
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