Mardy Fish overcomes Stanislas Wawrinka to reach semi-finals – Rogers Cup 2011
American number 1 Mardy Fish came back strong after faltering in the second set to outplay fourteenth seed Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland in three sets 6-3, 6-7(8), 6-0 in the quarterfinals at the Rogers Cup in Montreal on Friday.
The sixth seed needed two hours and 21 minutes to win a tough contest.
Fish got to a good start as he broke the Swiss in the third game of the first set and won his serve in the next game to take a 3-1 lead. The American claimed the second break of serve in the seventh game to go up 5-2 but he lost
his own serve in the next game, taking the score to 5-3 in his favour. Fish then broke the Swiss again in the ninth game to win the set 6-3.
The second set was a nightmare for both Fish and Wawrinka as they found it almost impossible to hold their serve. Fish lost his serve in the third and fifth game to trail 1-4. Then it was Wawrinka’s turn to lose serve as he was
broken in the sixth and eighth game to level the score at 4-4. Fish and the Swiss failed to hold their serve in the next four games to square off the score at 6-6, forcing a tie-break. The tie-break was a close contest; however, it was Wawrinka who managed
to claim a mini-break at the end to win it 10-8.
Fish, after losing the second set with the closest of margins, was almost flawless in the final set as he did not lose even a single game, breaking Wawrinka three times and clinching six straight games to win the set 6-0.
During the on-court interview after the match, Fish said, “It was tough to get a hold. The conditions were playing slow and we couldn’t win that last point on serve. We had the returns dialed in… [But] I knew I was playing the
right style of tennis, I just wasn't executing.”
The American added, “The second set was very strange for both of us… We couldn't hold serve to save our lives, but we returned really well. There's the positive, I guess. To dwell on sort of how you played, you're going to have
some problems. It's nice that I'm able to move on and to be able to rectify my serve game tomorrow.”
Fish will play unseeded Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia for a place in the final. The Serbian upset seventh seed Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic in the quarterfinals.
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