Stan Wawrinka strolled into his third Grand Slam semi-final of 2015 with a dominating win against an error-stricken Kevin Anderson. The French Open champion dropped eight games as he took the match 6-4,6-4,6-0.
The encounter was a significant milestone in Anderson’s career with the 29-year-old playing in his first Grand Slam quarter-final compared to Wawrinka who was playing in his tenth. The South African was clearly nervous, which played into the hands of the French Open champion. Wawrinka had the chance to break the normally reliable Anderson serve in the fifth game of the opening set but was unable to do so. The Wawrinka plan was to be aggressive and apply pressure onto Anderson’s second serve. This paid off as Anderson produced a costly double fault to allow the Swiss player to break for a 4-3, lead. The South African was unable to come up with a solution to Wawrinka’s serve as the world number five fired two powerful serves (one out wide and one down the centre) to take the first set. The biggest indication of Anderson’s nerves during the first set was his unforced error count, which was 16.
There was greater encouragement for Anderson at the start of the second set as he held his opening service to love, however, he was still lacking the driving force which he had during his victory over Andy Murray in the previous round. Despite this, it was the fired-up Wawrinka who appeared to be the one in control of match proceedings. During the fifth game, which consisted of four deuces, Wawrinka had a golden chance to break Anderson once more, but failed to do so after an enormous serve down the line by the world number 14 kept the set level. The level pegging continued until the business end of the set. With Anderson serving at 4-4, Wawrinka seized the opportunity with the help of some errors from his opponent. The break point was handed to Wawrinka after a sluggish backhand into the net from the South African. The French Open champion made the most of his gift by firing another spectacular backhand down the line to grab his second break of the match. In the following game Wawrinka took the set after forcing his opponent to produce his 31st unforced error. A way back seemed impossible for Anderson as Wawrinka became more determined. Throughout the second set the Swiss number two impressively won 100% of his first service points when they went in.
The Louis Armstrong court started to turn into a nightmare experience for Anderson as Wawrinka broke at the start of the first set before jogging to 2-0. Wawrinka was playing smartly and kept the ball in the court against a player who was starting to fall apart in front of him. Another double fault from Anderson was the most devastating of the entire match as it allowed Wawrinka to move to 3-0. It was only a matter of time before the 30-year-old progress to his second US Open semi-final. Anderson, who showed little emotion throughout the match, was dismissed with a serve/volley from Wawrinka.
During the match which lasted an hour and fifty minutes, the world number five produced 6 aces, 25 winners, 15 unforced errors and won 94% of his first serves. In contrast Anderson produced a disappointing 42 unforced errors and 9 double faults.
The win is the first time that Wawrinka has beaten Anderson since the 2013 Shanghai Open. It has also ended his four match losing streak against the South African number one.
