Swiss Stan Wawrinka (40 years old) achieved an inspiring victory in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship, ending the dream of Lebanese Benjamin Hassan, after eliminating him early from the first round competitions, and beating him in two sets without a response, 7-5 and 6-3, in a match that lasted only an hour and 11 minutes.
Amid the encouragement of his compatriot Roger Federer from the stands, Wawrinka, champion of the 2016 edition, achieved his sixth victory this season. The first set was relatively close, before the Swiss player decided the result immediately before the tie-breaking period by breaking his first opponent’s serve in the match “7-5”. In the second set, breaking Hassan’s serve at 2-1 was enough to achieve an easy victory.
Wawrinka qualified for the second round, where he is expected to face 2023 champion Daniil Medvedev, who will start his tournament campaign as he did last week in Doha, by facing Chinese Juncheng Shang.