Stan Wawrinka passed his biggest test so far of 2016, as he defeated fifth seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 6-4 in the Chennai quarter-finals. The Two-time Grand Slam and current defending champion needed seventy-eight minutes to earn his place in the last four.
The Swiss number four, who had three defeats to Garcia-Lopez in nine previous meetings, extended his current winning run over the Spaniard to three in a row. Garcia-Lopez is actually the most recent man to defeat Wawrinka at Roland Garros, having shocked the World No.4 in the first-round in 2014. Wawrinka would return to win the event in 2015. There were no such complications today though, as Wawrinka broke three times across the two sets, and limited Garcia-Lopez to just the one break.
Wawrinka’s opponent for the semi-finals has already been determined in the form of unpredictable Frenchman Benoit Paire. The third seed ended the surprise career-best run of Thomas Fabbiano at the quarter-final stage 6-4, 7-5. Paire enjoyed a stunning 2015, moving up from a ranking outside the Top 130, to a current career-high of No.19.
The other half of the draw sees Briton Aljaz Bedene continue to defend the runner-up ranking points he earned last year in Chennai. His 2016 quarter-final got off to a poor start, dropping the first on a tiebreak to local wildcard Ramkumar Ramanthan, but eventually recovered to win 6-7, 6-6, 6-3 . Despite dropping the opening set, Bedene did not have his serve broken. He atoned for that loss by breaking once apiece in the final two sets to progress.
There is a chance of a repeat of last year’s semi-final match-up for Bedene, as he awaits the winner of the match between Borna Coric and Roberto Baustista-Agut. The Briton defeated Baustista-Agut in last year’s semi-final, before losing to top seed Stan Wawrinka in the final.
