Wawrinka Reaches Dubai Final

World No. 4 Stan Wawrinka will contest his second ATP World Tour final of the season at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships when he takes on either Feliciano Lopez or Marcos Baghdatis.

The Swiss won his semi-final match on Friday when Nick Kyrgios was forced to retire from the contest with a back injury. Wawrinka was leading 6-4, 3-0.

“For sure if you look from the beginning of the week I was not playing great at all,” said Wawrinka, who was two points from defeat in the first round against Sergiy Stakhovsky. “But that’s when I can still improve and I’m happy I did this week – not playing some great tennis, frustrated during matches, but still fighting and trying to find solutions to win more matches during the week to play better.”

The 30-year-old Wawrinka is back in Dubai for the first time since first-round exits in 2006 and 2008. The Lausanne native, now a two-time Grand Slam champion, is looking to win his 13th tour-level title and second of the season. In the first week of his 2016 ATP World Tour campaign, Wawrinka beat teenager Borna Coric to win the Chennai crown.

Wawrinka is on an eight-match winning streak in finals and has a 12-9 record.

Kyrgios was coming off his first ATP World Tour title in Marseille, where he defeated Marin Cilic in the final. “I couldn’t really serve anywhere near my full capacity today,” explained the injured Kyrgios. “He was playing great, anyway. He was playing really aggressive off the second shot of his serve.”