Is the final surprising?  Afraid not.

Granted, Stan has beaten Roger before; we saw quite the demonstration of this at the FO QF 2015.  Straight sets. Staminal was on a sort of mission then, mission impossible, mission cannibal, baseline missile mission, what-have-you. But beating Roger Stan has not done very frequently, at all.  Trivia time:

1. What’s their H2H?
2. What’s significant about Stan’s wins vs. Roger (other than they were glorious moments for the younger Swiss, beating his mentor)?

Answer to #1: 18-3
Answer to #2: all of Stan’s wins over Roger have been on clay (Monte Carlo twice along with the RG win).

All of this to say: we’re not very surprised.  Did we yearn for the Stanimal to carry us on one of his great tourney runs?  For sure.  Even I hinted at the possibility.  But I wasn’t even convinced of his win over Murray to reach the SF.  Murray…