The tournament will have the final several wished for when Kevin Anderson pulled out, an enactment of the classic trope of the king and his challenger.
After top seed and defending champion Stan Wawrinka dispatched Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-4, Borna Coric survived a harrowing examination of his reputation as tennis’s Next Big Thing to defeat Aljaz Bedene 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 6-3.
Wawrinka’s was by far the easier path although the opponent standing in his way held considerable threat.
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Paire isn’t the orthodox power-hitter who always needs space to set up. He made scarcely believable strokes on the run, getting to the ball in that straight-backed, loose-limbed manner of his, and snapping the forearm and the wrist; and then he fluffed regulation strokes when he had the ball, the opponent, and the court at his mercy.
Standing unusually upright, the 6ft 5in Frenchman sliced a majority of his serves (wide to the deuce court or curled across the ‘T’ of the ad court), hit the forehand with a wristy flourish and slapped the two-handed backhand, memorably twisting an impossible one short, cross-court.
He’s a tactile player, one who appears to live for feel, the sensation of ball on strings.
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It’s an attractive style; but Paire needs to be absolutely at the top of it to beat the big players. He wasn’t remotely on Saturday. Wawrinka moreover isn’t merely any big player.
He frequently hits with Paire; the pair are friends, familiar with each other’s game. They even won the doubles here in 2013.
Several points had an echo of this familiarity: Wawrinka used the body serve to great advantage; and when called to pass Paire, he went straight at him instead of testing the Frenchman’s considerable wingspan.
What the match lacked as a contest, it made up in diverse, engaging, all-action rallies.
When Wawrinka wasn’t using his exceptional serve to engineer the point or taking the ball early to shorten it, he was happy to engage in Paire’s cat-and-mouse game.
Towards the end, with Paire appearing out of it physically, ginger-stepping and stretching between points, the match had the air of an exhibition about it.
In about the time it had taken Wawrinka to conclude matters — an hour and five minutes — Coric and Bedene fought each other to a standstill in the first set. Ranked 44 and 45 in the world respectively, little separated the two.
Coric seemed to have a little more intensity to his play; Bedene, however, couldn’t be shaken off.
Every rally was an interrogation of the other’s movement, consistency, court-craft and nerve: Who’d first change direction? Who’d risk greater depth? And who’d pull the trigger?
After an exchange of breaks early in the set, Coric gained an edge in the tie-break. He punished a drop-volley that wasn’t sufficiently soft. Bedene made sure nothing was handed easy — he was unfortunate that a chipped backhand pass that had Coric beaten caught the net’s cord — but the 19-year-old Croat wouldn’t be denied.
The second set drew from the same template.
This time, however, it was Bedene who took the early lead in the tie-break and pressed home the advantage.
The third set had another swap of breaks, but the decisive shift in momentum came in the seventh game: Coric held serve after 13 minutes of attempting to master both himself and Bedene, saving several break-points in the process.
He broke immediately and served it out without fuss.
The results (semifinals): 1-Stan Wawrinka (Sui) bt 3-Benoit Paire (Fra) 6-3, 6-4; 8-Borna Coric (Cro) bt Aljaz Bedene (GBr) 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 6-3.
On Friday (quarterfinals): Coric bt 4-Roberto Bautista Agut (Esp) 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(1).
Doubles: Devvarman & Jeevan bt N. Sriram Balaji (Ind) & Ramkumar Ramanathan (Ind) 6-4, 1-6, [10-6].