Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland
Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland hits a return to Jarkko Nieminen of Finland during their men's singles third round match at the Australian Open 2015 tennis tournament in Melbourne January 24, 2015.Wawrinka defeated Nieminen to win the match. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland defeated Jarkko Nieminen of Finland in straight sets, 6-4 6-2 6-4 on Saturday to advance to the fourth round of the 2015 Australian Open. After compatriot and world no. 2 Roger Federer got eliminated Friday, Wawrinka is now the lone Swiss in the tournament and will face Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain in the next round.

Wawrinka was the more aggressive player in the match hitting 55 winners to Nieminen’s 18 and also attacked the net going 22-of-28 (79%) on net points. Wawrinka admitted that attacking more was part of the plan entering the match.

“I feel good. It was a really good match from me today. I was playing great. Tried to be more aggressive than normal. Did few mistake at the beginning. I was a little bit hesitating with my game. But in general I think was a strong match,” Wawrinka said in the tournament’s official website.

Wawrinka was also asked about his focus as a defending champion and the Swiss said that it doesn’t matter if he’s under-the-radar, like in the 2014 Australian Open, once again. “I think I'm feeling good since the beginning of the tournament. For sure I'm not the focus on the tournament because there's Novak, Rafa coming back from injury, was Roger also just lost, there's Kyrgios, Tomic still playing. For sure I'm not the focus. For me doesn't matter. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling great. I'm happy the way I'm playing. To get to the second week again, it's great. So far everything is good for me.”

Wawrinka also had 9 aces in the match and broke Nieminen six times to net the easy victory despite having more unforced errors, 39-30 than Nieminen. Wawrinka admitted that Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are still the top favourites to win the title.

“I still think Novak and Rafa are the big favorites for the tournament. As I say from the beginning of the tournament, Roger was also there. He lost yesterday. But I think there's some big match coming with Raonic, Nishikori, Ferrer plays tonight against Simon. Going to be an interesting one. Let's see what happen tomorrow night with Kyrgios and Tomic.” If Wawrinka survives the Garcia-Lopez challenge in the fourth round, he’ll face either David Ferrer of Spain or Kei Nishikori of Japan in the quarterfinals.

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