Stan Wawrinka, the top seed left in the draw at Indian Wells, came through in a tough quarter-final match against eighth seed Dominic Thiem. Wawrinka saw off Thiem 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(2) in two hours and 31 minutes, getting the win on his second match point at the BNP Paribas Open on Friday.

The Swiss third seed won the first set 6-4, but an early break in the third game of the second set allowed Thiem to take it to the decider. In the final set, Wawrinka began strongly racing to a 3-0 lead with a break on the Austrian’s serve in the second game. However, he was broken back on his serve in the fifth game. Thiem had a break point in the ninth game on Wawrinka’s serve, but missed on a routine forehand shot which allowed Wawrinka to retain his serve.

The Swiss faced his first match point in the 12th game on Thiem’s serve, but an unforced error on his forehand ended his chances. The set went into a tie-break then but Wawrinka dominated it to reach to his first semi-final at Indian Wells. To sum it up, Wawrinka finished the match with 24 winners and 49 unforced errors as compared to Thiem, who had 26 winners and 37 unforced errors.

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The third seed will face Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta in the semi-final on Saturday in the top-half of the men’s singles draw. Busta defeated Pablo Cuevas to reach his maiden ATP Masters 1000 semi-final, with a 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(4) win in two hours and four minutes.

Carreno Busta lost only one game in the opening set over the 27th seed, before the Uruguyan got back into the match with a 6-3 win of the second set. In the third set, it was the latter who held the advantage, with two match points back-to-back in the 10th and 11th game of the set. While Carreno Busta saved both match points, he also emerged to be the better player in the resultant tie-break to win it 7-4. With this win. Busta will break into the top 20 in the ATP rankings on Monday.

It will be a battle of first-timers between Wawrinka and Carreno Busta in the semi-finals.