Stanislas Wawrinka reaches maiden Grand Slam final at Australian Open

Melbourne, Jan 23 (IANS) Swiss No.8 seed Stanislas Wawrinka reached his first Grand Slam final at the Melbourne Park Thursday after beating Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-7(1-7), 7-6(7-3), 7-6(7-4) in the semifinals of the Australian Open.

Wawrinka will meet either 17-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer or 13-time major winner Rafael Nadal, whose semifinal will be played Friday.

Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland celebrates after defeating Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic during their semifinal match at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, on January 23, 2014.

Wawrinka broke Berdych in the eighth game of the first set and then served out the opener in 31 minutes, hitting 12 winners, twice as many as Berdych.

The break soon proved the only one in the match.

Berdych saved the only break point of the set in the seventh game to force a tiebreak. The Czech improved his winner count to 20 and closed out the set in 56 minutes by winning the tiebreak 7- 1.

Neither player was able to make a breakthrough in the third set as Berdych wasted his first break point of the contest at 4-4. The third set went to another tiebreak in which Wawrinka benefited from another double fault from Berdych to clinch it.

Berdych saved a break point in a 16-minute first game of the fourth set. Once again both players were inseparable on serve. In the third tiebreak of the match, another double fault from Berdych saw him go 1-4 down. Then an ace from Wawrinka put him in 5-2 lead.

The Swiss wasted his first match point but didn’t let the second slip through his fingers, winning the match with a long Berdych return.