Stan Wawrinka booked a spot in his fourth final of the year Saturday at the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships in Tokyo. He will face Benoit Paire for the title.

The top seed ended the fine run of Gilles Muller 6-4, 7-6(5) in one hour and 36 minutes and will now look to capture the 11th title of his career. It was his 47th match win in 60 matches this year.

The first set went with serve until the seventh game, when Wawrinka capitalised on his second break point opportunity to take a 4-3 lead. Overall, the Swiss hit six aces and lost just four of his service points.

Pressure mounted for Muller to keep points short early in the second set, when he struck a double fault to lose his serve in an 10-point third game. However, he bounced back immediately breaking to 30 to level at 2-2.

At the encounter wore on, Muller kept attacking to rush Wawrinka into a number of groundstroke errors but at 4-4, Wawrinka flicked a crosscourt forehand return that led to him convert his third break point chance. Muller was left deflated, but managed to regroup in the next game and strike back – planting a forehand approach into the corner, prior to a smash winner.

Wawrinka hit his spots to keep the points short and Muller used his swing server to great effect in the tie-break, which saw no mini breaks. On Wawrinka’s first match point, at 6/5 with Muller serving, the Luxembourg native punched his first backhand volley wide into the tramlines.

Muller, who had beaten Kevin Anderson, Jeremy Chardy and Gilles Simon en route to his fourth ATP World Tour semi-final of 2015, is now 32-20 in a career-best season. On Monday, he will break back into the Top 40 of the Emirates ATP Rankings for the first time since the week beginning 23 March.

Wawrinka has already qualifying for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, to be held at The O2 in London from 15-22 November. He has won three titles at Chennai (d. Bedene), Rotterdam (d. Berdych) and Roland Garros (d. Djokovic) this year.