Federer eases into quarterfinals But Wawrinka, Murray toppled at Indian Wells
INDIAN WELLS, United States — Fourtime champion Roger Federer eased into the quarterfinals of the Indian Wells ATP Masters on Wednesday with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Germany's Tommy Haas.
Federer, the former world number one who won titles here in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2012, posted his third successive straight- sets victory to set up a meeting with South African Kevin Anderson.
Anderson beat Australian Open champion Wawrinka 7-6 (7/1), 4-6, 6-1 to end Wawrinka's run of 13 straight match wins to open 2014, which included a title run in Chennai before his maiden Grand Slam triumph in Melbourne.
" I knew it's going to happen," Wawrinka said. "I'm not going to keep winning every tournament."
Two-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray of Britain was another fourthround casualty, falling 4-6, 75, 6- 3 to big- serving Canadian Milos Raonic.
Raonic set up a quarterfinal clash with Alexandr Dolgopolov. The 28thseeded Ukrainian showed no sign of a let-down after his third-round ouster of world number one Rafael Nadal, beating Italian Fabio Fognini 6-2, 6-4.
World number two Novak Djokovic faced a tough night match against red-hot Croatian Marin Cilic.
Wawrinka's exit ended what could have been a tasty all- Swiss quarter- final between him and Federer.
Instead Anderson will face Federer, a four- time champion in the California desert who edged German veteran Tommy Haas 6-4, 64.
Wawrinka, whose run to the title in Australia included wins over Novak Djokovic, Tomas Berdych and Rafael Nadal, fought back from an early break in the second set force a third.
But he said he never really felt comfortable.
" It took me a lot of energy to come back here, to practice well, to win the first two matches, especially against (Ivo) Karlovic," said Wawrinka, who hadn't played an ATP tournament since the Australian Open.
"Today I felt that my energy was a little bit down. Mentally, I wasn't ready."
Anderson, who had lost three prior matches against Wawrinka, said he adopted an aggressive strategy based on their most recent meeting – when Wawrinka beat him in three sets in Shanghai last year.
"We had a really close match," Anderson said. "I lost in a third set breaker. Just taking what I could from that match, one of the things was to try to be as aggressive as I can when possible, and I thought I did that quite well for most of the match."
Like Wawrinka, Murray left feeling dissatisfied with himself.
He broke the mighty Raonic serve for a 2-1 lead in the third set, then his game deserted him.
"The third set was just a bad, bad set of tennis," said Murray, who has yet to reach a final since having back surgery in September. "That's what's disappointing for me, because the rest of the match was OK."