Wawrinka, 31, underlined his supremacy on the hardcourt surface in the second with two more breaks to close out in 64 minutes.
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Stan Wawrinka’s strong start to the fall continued on Saturday in the semifinals of the St. Petersburg Open as the recent US Open champion wore down fourth seed Roberto Bautista Agut to seal his place in the final with a straight set victory.
Third seed Berdych, now ninth in the race to the London ATP Finals – which features the year’s top eight players – also advanced past Italian veteran Paolo Lorenzi 6-4, 6-3. “I broke him and I also had chances to break a second time”.
The ninth-ranked Czech will next face promising German youngster Alexander Zverev of Germany, who eased past Russian veteran Mikhail Youzhny 6-2, 6-2.
A tight opener looked set for a tie-break after 11 holds of serve, but Wawrinka upped the tempo at the decisive moment to move ahead. Sascha was 40-15 up in game 8 and he wasted 4 game points in total before Tomas created his first break point of the match. The Spaniard had two set points in the tiebreaker and saved one of his opponent’s before Wawrinka converted his second set point. Agut defeated eighth-seeded Joao Sousa of Portugal 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinals.
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Wawrinka lines up a backhand during his semifinal win. In game 7 Wawrinka was finally tested on serve, saving two break points with a service victor and another nice attack, and he had to fend off another one in game 11 to reach the tie break. This gave a huge momentum to Wawrinka, who started to push his rival on return while facing no break points on his serve.
