But the Swiss somehow managed to win the fourth set and the match went into the
final set for deciding the winner.
It has taken until the eighth day for a match to go to 12-12 in the
final set, but finally the wait ended in the men's doubles second round.
Andy and his partner Pierre-Hugues Herbert (France) went down in the second round to Croatian pair Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor in four sets while Jamie and his new sidekick Neal Skupski lost 6-4 in the
final set to Ivan Dodig (Croatia) and Filip Polasek (Slovakia) for a first round KO.
The
final set of the match provided numerous rallies between Pietrzyk and Normanton before the former got the better.
With most of the Raiders on board to change things for the
final set, we kept a little more focused and showed we in fact did want to win the match by putting the match away with a
final set of 25-20.
In an intense
final set, both players held serve with relative ease until the 10th game when Wawrinka fired two scorching forehands to convert a break point and book a place in Sunday's final.
She broke Sevastova early in the
final set to go 2-0 up, however the Latvian broke back after seven deuces.
Japanese eighth seed Kei Nishikori blew a two-set lead against veteran Ivo Karlovic and was within a whisker of second-round elimination in the Australian Open Thursday before winning a pulsating
final set tiebreak.Big-serving Karlovic, 39, stood on the brink of becoming the oldest man into the third round since 44-year-old Aussie great Ken Rosewall in 1978 before Nishikori hauled himself back into contention by saving three break points at 4-4 in the
final set.
The year's opening Grand Slam, starting January 14, will for the first time feature an extended tie-break in the
final set when the score reaches 6-6, rather than a traditional full set.
The US Open was the first grand slam to introduce final-set tiebreaks, with a first-to-seven-points game played at 6-6 in the
final set. The French Open is now the only slam to use a long deciding set.
The
final set was marked with aces, long rallies and the score went up to 3-3 as both the players held their respective serves but Penev eventually won it 6-4.