Bautista Agut Ends Wawrinka's Run In Doha

Seventh seed Roberto Bautista Agut played with great poise from the baseline to outlast 2008 finalist Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 6-4 on Thursday for a place in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open semi-finals. The Spaniard will next challenge World No. 1 and 2016-17 champion Novak Djokovic or fifth seed Nikoloz Basilashvili.

Bautista Agut got off to strong starts by breaking Wawrinka in the first game and clinched the 48-minute opener on his fourth set point chance. He broke immediately at the start of the second set and put Wawrinka under pressure in the fifth and seventh games. At 5-4, Bautista Agut recovered from 15/40 to complete victory in one hour and 45 minutes.

Last year, the Spaniard lifted the biggest title of his career at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships (d. Pouille), an ATP 500-level tournament.

Also today, fourth-seeded Italian Marco Cecchinato takes on Dusan Lajovic of Serbia and Czech wild card Tomas Berdych plays Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France in the quarter-finals.

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