There will be a Swiss representation in Sunday’s men’s singles final as fourth seeded Stanislas Wawrinka and his more illustrious opponent Roger Federer, seeded 17th will clash in the semi final of the Australian Open at Flinder’s Park in Melbourne. Federer back in action after a six month injury layoff beat the German Mischa Zverev 6-1, 7-5, 6-2, while Wawrinka defeated the 2008 finalist, Jo Wilfred Tsonga of France 7-6(2), 6-4, 6-3.

In the morning session, the 2014 champion and the reigning U.S. Open Wawrinka, took the final five points of the first set tie-break and then came roaring back from a break down in the second set reeling of three successive games from 3-4 down to claim the second set 6-4. He started the third set winning the first three games, and held his own serves to win the match in two hours and fourteen minutes.

Wawrinka who also won the French Open title in 2015, hit 41 winners and most importantly converted on all three break point chances in the match. He took advantage of 39 unforced errors from his opponent who only converted on one out of the six break point chances. Wawrinka won 108 points in the match, while Tsonga won only 85 points.

In the evening session, the four time champion Federer raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set against his 50th ranked opponent who had knocked out the top seeded Andy Murray in the previous round. The 29 year old elder brother of Alexander Zverev broke in the fourth game of the second set but was broken right back by the legendary Swiss to level at 3-3. Once Federer broke in the eleventh game of the second set the result was never in doubt as he raced through the the third set 6-3 to end the match lasting one hour and thirty two minutes on the Rod Laver Arena.

The following is the line up of matches on Day Ten with my pick mentioned first :-

Milos Raonic (3) v. Rafael Nadal (9)
Grigor Dmitrov (15) v. David Goffin (11)

In the women’s section of the draw, the elder of the Williams siblings, Venus, the 36 year old seeded 13th, took out the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, seeded 24th, 6-4,7-6(3) in just one hour and forty seven minutes. Venus, winner of five Wimbledon titles and two U.S. Open titles will now play fellow American Coco Vandeweghe who upset the reigning French Open champion Garbine Muguruza of Spain 6-4,6-0 in just 83 minutes.

The remaining women’s quarter finals pits Serena Williams against the ninth seeded Briton Johanna Konta, while the fifth seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic faces the Croatian Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.

– Rasesh Mehta [Rasesh Mehta is an analyst with the Tennis Galaxy. You can reach him at the email: sportzcosmos@gmail.com]