Stan Wawrinka survives close match against Cressy in Madrid

Maxime Cressy impressed many last year but the American has been struggling this year and he added another loss against Stan Wawrinka at the Madrid Open 7-6(3) 3-6 6-7(4).

This match went largely as expected with both players mostly focusing on their own serve. We saw two tiebreaks which is unusual on clay however it's quite typical for Madrid where the serve matters far more than on your regular clay court. Wawrinka was the favourite before the match as he's far better on clay than his opponent and generally Cressy has struggled this year.

The first set finished in a tiebreak with Cressy taking it 7-3. He was superb on his first serve dropping only one point behind it with 11 winners on top of that. The second set saw Wawrinka produce a much better effort overall breaking Cressy who misfired a bit too often. The Swiss player had no issues on his own serve hitting six aces for the 6-3 score.

The final set once again showed both players dominating on their own serve. We didn't see a single break point but in the tiebreak, Wawrinka proved just a bit better taking it 7-4. 38 winners from the Swiss veteran compared to 26 from Cressy. The American also didn't have a very great serving day with 9 aces and 11 double faults.

Wawrinka will face Rublev next.