Basle, Switzerland - Second seed Novak Djokovic salvaged his successful debut week at the Swiss Indoors, recovering from a set and a break down to oust six seed Stan Wawrinka 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 for a place in the quarter-finals Friday. The Serbian will Saturday play Czech Radek Stepanek a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 winner over Croatian fourth seed Marin Cilic.
Cilic's loss leave him with a huge task if the provisional 12th-placed playeris to saying he race for one of two remaining places in the eight-man season final in London later in the month.
Djokovic has won four of five matches against Stepanek, including a US Open fourth round two months ago.
The victory in just over two and a quarter hours was markedly more laboured than the 0-0 rout Djokovic inflicted 24 hours earlier on luckless Czech Jan Henrych, first "double bagel" of his career.
The Serb ranked fourth in the world but with a chance to climb to second given the right circumstances as the ATP season nears an end, got a break back in the eighth game as he began to turn the tide against Wawrinka, whose six-months-pregnant girlfriend was cheering him on from the box.
Djokovic won a second-set tiebreaker to stay in the chase, then ran away with the third set on the back of two quick breaks which left Waswrinka with few hopes as the Swiss saved one match point but couldn't handle a return at his feet on the second.
Two more Swiss were trying to exceed where Wawrinka failed at the home event.
Unseeded Marco Chiudinelli was facing Richard Gasquet of France while Roger Federer was aiming o claim a fourth consecutive title at home when he played the showcase match against Russian Evgeny Korolev.
This edition marks the second time hat three Swiss had reached the quarter-finals in anATP event, the previous being Basle eight years ago though Federer, George Bastl and Michel Kratochvil.
