Third seed Kei Nishikori broke through against two-time Swiss Indoors Basel champion Juan Martin del Potro on Friday, recording his first win over the Argentine in five attempts to advance to the semi-finals, 7-5, 6-4.
A single break of serve in each set was all Nishikori needed to move into the final four. The Japanese star saved all eight break points against him during the match, while accumulating 10 break point chances of his own.
Nishikori hadn’t taken a set off del Potro in any of their four previous meetings. He’s now won 55 ATP World Tour matches in 2016, more than any other season. Nishikori will look to reach his fifth final of the year against Gilles Muller, against whom he has a 2-0 record against in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series.
Qualifier Mischa Zverev scored the biggest upset of the week, knocking out top seed Stan Wawrinka 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 to move into the semi-finals. The German left-hander is the first qualifier to reach the semi-finals in Basel since 2005 when Marcos Baghdatis advanced to the final (l. to Gonzalez). He was also a qualifier when he reached his previous ATP World Tour semi-final in Metz six years ago. That week, he lost the final to Gilles Simon.
Zverev broke Wawrinka six times to record his first Top 10 win since beating Nikolay Davydenko in Shanghai in 2010. He will next face No. 4 seed Marin Cilic, who beat Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-3. The win also guarantees Zverev a special exemption into the BNP Paribas Masters main draw next week.
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Muller pulled off a miraculous comeback against Federico Delbonis in their quarter-final match, rallying from 3-5 down in the final set to prevail in a marathon battle, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3).
Delbonis squeaked through an opening set that had no service breaks, while Muller needed just a single break at 2-2 in the second set to level the match. The Argentine served for the match at 5-3 and Muller fought back to win three consecutive games, but couldn’t convert on his own opportunity to serve out the contest at 6-5 as Delbonis fittingly forced a final set tie-break.
Little separated the two players until 2/3, when Muller made a final push by winning the last five points to take the match. Muller improved his FedEx ATP Head2Head against Delbonis to 2-0.
Muller has enjoyed his most fruitful season by winning a career-high 34 matches in 2016. He’s now into his sixth ATP World Tour semi-final of the season (2-3) and is looking to reach his third final. The 33-year-old will move within striking distance of his career-high Emirates ATP Ranking of No. 34 by reaching the semi-finals.
Doubles Semi-Finals Set
Robert Lindstedt and Michael Venus are the last team to move into the semi-finals after beating Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram 6-4, 7-5. Klaasen/Ram are No. 6 in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London and recently qualified for their first Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.