By Chris Oddo | Wednesday September 21, 2016

 

Stan Wawrinka returned to action tonight in St. Petersburg, making short work of Lukas Rosol to reach the quarterfinals.

Photo Source: St. Petersburg Open

Their last two meetings had gone the distance, but Stan Wawrinka made sure to make short work of Lukas Rosol on Wednesday in second-round action at the St. Petersburg Open. Wawrinka dropped just one first-serve point (24 for 25) and saved all three break points he faced in defeating the Czech, 6-3, 6-1, to reach the quarterfinals.

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Wawrinka improves to 6-0 against Rosol and will face either Dusan Lajovic or seventh-seeded Viktor Troicki in the quarterfinals.

In his first appearance at St. Petersburg since 2004, Wawrinka broke four times on nine opportunities and won ten of the final 12 games.

Wawrinka broke for 3-2 with a perfectly placed backhand slice winner, and claimed the opening set on his second set point by rifling a forehand down-the-line winner past Rosol.

The Swiss, who improved to 40-12 with the victory, saved three break points in the first game of set two before rolling out to a 5-0 lead. Rosol would stop the bleeding with a hold for 1-5, but Wawrinka closed proceedings by forcing a Rosol error with a well-struck crosscourt backhand.

In other action on Wednesday in St. Petersburg, former champion and three-time St. Petersburg finalist Mikhail Youzhny defeated Janko Tipsarevic, 6-3, 7-5, while 18-year-old Russian wild card Andrey Rublev took out Mikhail Kukushkin when the Kazakh retired down 6-3, 4-1 in set two.

Seventh-seeded Viktor Troicki, eighth-seeded Joao Sousa and Andrey Kuznetsov were also winners on Wednesday.