French Open 2016: Defending champion Stan Wawrinka moves into quarter-finals
Paris: Defending champion Stan Wawrinka moved into the French Open quarterfinals on Sunday where he will face a Spanish left-hander who isn’t named Rafael Nadal.
That honour falls to unheralded Albert Ramos-Vinolas who reached his first Grand Slam last-eight with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Canadian eighth seed Milos Raonic.
Third seed Wawrinka, for his part, saw off Serbia’s Viktor Troicki 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (7/9), 6-3, 6-2 for his 11th straight win in the year’s second Grand Slam.
“It was far from easy with tough conditions — heavy and cold, but I am happy to have come through it,” 31-year-old Wawrinka said.
“It was a big battle, but I was able to stay calm and win this match.”
It was Wawrinka’s fifth win in five meetings with Troicki whose challenge fizzled out after he required treatment for a right thigh injury at 4-1 down in the third set.
Ramos-Vinolas, 28, had never got beyond the second round of any major before this Roland Garros and had failed to win a match at the tournament since 2011.
But the World No.55, who is only his country’s ninth best player, ensured a left-hander from Spain would be in the last-eight after the injury-enforced withdrawal of nine-time champion Nadal.
He trails Wawrinka 6-0 in career meetings including last week in Geneva where he won just two games. “Wawrinka is hugely powerful. Last week I played him, and he won very easily,” said Ramos-Vinolas.
Muguruza faces shelby in last eight
Meanwhile, Garbine Muguruza of Spain blazed into the quarter-finals for the third straight year, defeating former champion Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 6-4. The 22-year-old Venezuelan-born fourth seed will next play world number 108 Shelby Rogers of the United States who defeated Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania by the same score 6-3, 6-4.
“At the end it is always very tough. She is a player with a lot of experience and I just had to be there,” said Muguruza of her win over Kuznetsova.
Muguruza is seen as one of the new stars of the women’s game after a breakthrough season in 2015 when she was runner-up to Serena Williams at Wimbledon and made the semis at the WTA Finals.
