Aircel Chennai Open: Wawrinka beats Rublev 6-3, 6-2; Garcia, Coric, too, move into next round

Aircel Chennai Open - Stan Wawrinka beats Rublev 6-3, 6-2Chennai: Top seed Stan Wawrinka got the better of Andrey Rublev 6-3, 6-2 at the Aircel Chennai Open, here on Wednesday. The Swiss moved past the 18-year-old Russian wild card in just under one hour.

The World No. 4 and two-time defending champion struck six aces and converted over 80 per cent of points on both first and second serve. Wawrinka broke Rublev three times in the pair’s first ATP meeting.

Wawrinka will now take on fifth seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who eliminated Croatian qualifier Ante Pavic 7-6(5), 6-1. The 26-year-old Pavic, ranked No. 449, started strongly against the No. 27 Garcia-Lopez. The 32-year-old Spaniard was made to sweat before taking the first set in a tie-break after an hour. Therefater, he raced to a 3-0 lead in the second set and closed on win on his first match point. In the quarter-finals, Garcia-Lopez will aim for a fourth win in 10 attempts against Wawrinka.

Also victorious was eighth seed Borna Coric, who eliminated American Austin Krajicek 6-2, 7-5 in 90 minutes. He is slated to meet fourth seed Roberto Bautista Agut in the next round. Agut defeated John Millman 6-4, 6-1.

Meanwhile, the doubles wildcard of N. Sriram Balaji and Ramkumar Ramanathan won the match knocking out the Kiwi pairing of Marcus Daniell-Artem Sitak, who were seeded fourth. The Indian duo won the match 2-6, 7-6(5), 10-5 to move into the doubles quarterfinals.

The wild card pairing of Somdev Devvarman and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, too, won their doubles match on the outside court 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 over the Nicholas Monroe-Hans Podlipnik-Castillo, much to the delight of home fans.