Wawrinka rolls back years with Stockholm win; Rublev marches on

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/stan-wawrinka/w367/overview'Stan Wawrinka/a produced a vintage performance Thursday at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/stockholm/429/overview'BNP Paribas Nordic Open/a to become the oldest quarter-finalist in Stockholm tournament history./p

pThe 39-year-old dug deep to prevail 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alejandro-davidovich-fokina/dh50/overview'Alejandro Davidovich Fokina/a and record back-to-back tour-level wins for the first time since reaching the third round of the 2023 a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/us-open/560/overview'US Open/a. Wawrinka twice trailed by a break in the deciding set, but found some gutsy tennis to advance in two hours, 12 minutes./p

pldquo;Irsquo;m super happy to get through this match, it was a tough opponent today, but the level was good and it was great to win two matches here,rdquo; said Wawrinka. ldquo;Itrsquo;s an amazing atmosphere, a full house. Thank you everybody for making so much noise.rdquo;/p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"

p lang="en" dir="ltr"STAN THE MAN ????br /

br /

A great week continues for a href="https://twitter.com/stanwawrinka?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@stanwawrinka/a as he rallies past Davidovich Fokina 6-4 3-6 7-5 to reach his 112th tour-level quarter-final!a href="https://twitter.com/EuroTennisOpen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@EuroTennisOpen/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EuropeanOpen?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#EuropeanOpen/a a href="https://t.co/qy9mFjAXt0"pic.twitter.com/qy9mFjAXt0/a/p

mdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1846972076814450978?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"October 17, 2024/a/blockquote

script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

pWawrinka, the former No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings, capitalised on a lacklustre seventh game from the Spaniard before closing out the first set with ease. Davidovich Fokina then raised his level in a near-flawless second set, during which he won 89 per cent (16/18) of points behind his first serve, according to Infosys ATP Stats./p

pHowever, the 25-year-old was unable to close out the match in a deciding set full of momentum shifts. Wawrinka eventually took advantage of an untimely double fault from his opponent to set up the sole match point needed./p

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pWawrinka will face top seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andrey-rublev/re44/overview'Andrey Rublev/a, who got underway with an emphatic 6-4, 6-1 win over a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexandre-muller/mp20/overview'Alexandre Muller/a. Rublev did not blink throughout the contest, during which he struck 17 winners and saved all three of the break points he faced./p

pRublev is currently eighth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, leading ninth-placed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-de-minaur/dh58/overview'Alex de Minaur/a by just 275 points in what is turning out to be an absorbing battle for qualification for the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a./p

pEarlier, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/miomir-kecmanovic/ki95/overview'Miomir Kecmanovic/a held his nerve in a thrilling contest with a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/nicolas-jarry/j551/overview'Nicolas Jarry/a that went down to the wire. The Serbian clinched the hard-fought contest 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(2)./p

pThird seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/grigor-dimitrov/d875/overview'Grigor Dimitrov/a closed the day with a 7-6(1), 6-3 victory against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/quentin-halys/hb64/overview'Quentin Halys/a to record his 18th match win mdash; most among active players mdash; at the ATP 250. The Bulgarian, who won his first tour-level title in Stockholm in 2013, will meet Swiss a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/dominic-stricker/s0la/overview'Dominic Stricker/a in the quarter-finals./p

pDimitrov, currently tenth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, is aiming to make a late-season push and qualify for the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a for the first time since he won the season finale in 2017./p

p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p