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- Stan Wawrinka (ATP 20) defeats Andrej Rublew (ATP 8) in the round of 16 at Paris-Bercy with 1: 6, 6: 4, 6: 3.
- The Swiss ended an 11-game winning streak for the 23-year-old Russian.
- In Friday’s quarterfinals, Wawrinka will face world number 7 Alexander Zverev.
Stan Wawrinka and Andrej Rublew had to wait a long time before they could reach the last sixteen. It wasn’t until 10:30 pm that the two entered court in the Bercy district of Paris. When the Swiss victory was certain, it was already past midnight.
Rublew had 11 wins in a row lately. And at the start of the game, everything indicated that number 12 would continue against Wawrinka. The Lausanne player was simply overwhelmed by the powerful game, especially the forehand, from his 23-year-old opponent.
Rublew loses focus
But Wawrinka managed to flip the switch. While it was able to significantly reduce its error rate and served better than the opening sentence, its counterpart collapsed. At the latest, when the Swiss made the break to 4: 3 with a big return winner, the thread snapped at Rublew.
In the third set, Wawrinka built perfectly on her strong performance and, in addition to her running skills, she also repeatedly demonstrated her fine hand. Rublew, who had recently won the tournaments in St. Petersburg and Vienna, was clearly served. A setback to the net sealed their defeat after 1:41 hours. A defeat that he hadn’t even hinted at at first.
Another difficult task awaits Wawrinka in the quarterfinals on Friday. The Swiss meets Alexander Zverev (ATP 7). The German showed some problems in his round of 16 against Jordan Thompson, but ultimately prevailed in 3 sets.
