Chennai: Go Soeda of Japan is over the moon. And he has every reason to be. On Friday, he pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament defeating Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4, 6-4, in the quarter final of the Chennai Open.

“(This is the) biggest win of my career. It was a great feeling to beat the defending champion,” the 27-year-old said after the match. “I never thought I would win today… Frankly... But I think I played good tennis against the world No. 17.”

Soeda said he had done his homework well. “He doesn’t like to play the forehands, so I kept the ball there… He started losing it once I kept on doing that,” Soeda said smiling.

Soeda feels he has improved since last year. “I have worked on my forehand returns. And this tournament shows that results are encouraging. I am a different player altogether now.”

Wawrinka was not bitter and not ready to lose his sleep over this failure. “He played really well. And he is the deserving winner. But these are early days and I am yet to find my rhythm. If you remember even last year, here, I was not playing well but somhow kept on winning matches.

“This time it just happened that I lost. I believe that’s life.. that’s tennis. Generally this time of the year very few player you will see hitting top form…”

While Soeda will be thinking of how to decode his semi-final rival, the Swiss will be travelling to Adelaide preparing for the Australian Open. “I will play a few exhibition matches before the year’s first Grand Slam event begins.”