Stanislas Wawrinka edges past Steve Darcis into the third round – US Open 2012
Swiss number two, Stanislas Wawrinka, fought back after getting two sets to one down and defeated Belgium’s Steve Darcis 6-7(6), 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 in the round of 64 at the US Open on Friday.
It took Wawrinka three hours and 28 minutes to post this close win over his lower ranked opponent.
The Swiss star picked up form recently after giving poor performances in the earlier months. He had lost in the first round of three straight tournaments including Wimbledon and London Olympics but he advanced to the semi-finals
at the Western & Southern Open, losing to his close friend and Davis Cup team mate, Roger Federer.
Wawrinka and Darcis started by breaking each other in the first two games, levelling the score at 1-1. The rest of the set went with serves, taking the score to 6-6 and forcing a tie-breaker. The Swiss player had a couple of set
points at 6-4 but then lost four successively to go down 6-7(4).
In the second set, Wawrinka started to play in an aggressive manner and applied pressure on his opponent, winning opening three games to take a 3-0 advantage. The Swiss star made sure that Darcis could not bounce back, sealing
it 6-3.
Wawrinka and Darcis did not allow each other to break serve in the first nine games of the third set and took the score to 5-4 in favour of the Belgian. Serving to stay in the set at 4-5, the Swiss player could not win even a single
point and lost it 4-6.
After getting down two sets to one, Wawrinka knew that there was no more chance. The world number 19 raised the level of his game and looked like a completely different player. Wawrinka dropped only a single one till the end, closing
it 6-1.
There was a stiff competition in the final set, as both players won their serve in the opening 11 games to take the score to 6-5 in favour of Wawrinka. The Swiss participant struck at that moment and captured it 7-5.
Wawrinka will play the 14th seed, Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine, in the third round.
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