This year’s Roland Garros champion Stan Wawrinka got off to a winning start to his campaign in the Shanghai Rolex Master beating Viktor Troicki 7-6 (7-3) 6-3 three days after collecting his fourth title of the season in Tokyo. Wawrinka converted two of his eight service games.
In the first set Wawrinka won 62 percent of his service points. Troicki went up a break at 1-2. Wawrinka committed too many unforced errors and trailed 1-4 but he broke back for 3-4. The set came down to the tie-break where the 2014 Australian Open and 2015 Roland Garros champion prevailed with 7-3. In the second set Wawrinka broke on Troicki’s first service game and held his service games en route to serving out for the match for 6-3. Wawrinka will face 2014 US Open champion Marin Cilic who rallied from a set down to edge Wu Di 4-6 6-3 7-6.
Kevin Anderson beat Fabio Fognini 6-3 7-6 (7-1). Fognini, who was beaten by Rafa Nadal in the semifinals in Beijing, earned the first break point of the match but hard-court specialist Anderson saved the break point holding serve at deuce. Anderson broke to take a 4-2 lead. Tthe South African player held his service game to take the first set with 6-3. The second set went on serve and came down to the tie-break where Anderson cruised to 7-1
Bernard Tomic beat David Ferrer 6-4 6-2. Ferrer went down a double break to trail 0-4. At 1-5 Ferrer recovered one of the two breaks and clawed his way back to 4-5 but Tomic closed out the next game on his first set point. Tomic got a double break on two consecutive Ferrer’s service games to cruise to 6-2. Tomic’s next rival will be Richard Gasquet who withstood 13 aces and broke serve three times to battle past Vasek Pospisil 6-4 3-6 6-4
