By Chris Oddo | Friday March 17, 2017
Stan Wawrinka won by way of a third-set tiebreaker for the second consecutive night to reach the BNP Paribas Open semifinals. The Swiss took down Austria’s Dominic Thiem, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(2), to book a spot alongside Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta in Saturday’s semifinals.
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Earlier on Thursday, Carreno Busta battled past Pablo Cuevas, 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(4), saving two match points to reach his first career Masters 1000 semifinal. Carreno Busta faced match points while serving at 4-5 and 5-6 in the third set but hung on to get to a tiebreaker.
Wawrinka notched his 450th career win, belting his way past Thiem in two hours and 31 minutes. Thiem rallied from 3-0 down in the decider to level, but could not hold off Wawrinka in the tiebreaker and dropped to 1-3 lifetime against the Swiss.
‘I'm really happy,” Wawrinka told reporters after the match. “The level was really high tonight. I'm really happy the way I was playing, the way I find a way to win it. He's a strong player, really tough to play. I think in general we play both really high level, and the match was only one, two points.”
Wawrinka has been quite the escape artist this week at Indian Wells. Yoshihito Nishioka twice served for the match against him last night, but a resilient Wawrinka was able to gut out the win.
“I think in the third set tiebreak I served really well,” Wawrinka said. “I was really focused to not give him anything. And, again, it's a great win for me.”