Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Opinion / Stanislas Wawrinka: From ‘aam aadmi’ pro to Grand Slam champion
BackBack

Stanislas Wawrinka: From ‘aam aadmi’ pro to Grand Slam champion

Stanislas Wawrinka beat both Nadal and Djokovic to become first man in 21 years to beat both number 1 and number 2

Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka celebrates after his victory against Spain’s Rafael Nadal during the men’s singles final on day 14 of the 2014 Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on 26 January 2014. Photo: AFP Premium
Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka celebrates after his victory against Spain’s Rafael Nadal during the men’s singles final on day 14 of the 2014 Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on 26 January 2014. Photo: AFP

Stanislas Wawrinka is nearly 29 years old. He has been a pro on the ATP World Tour for longer than the professional career of most players: 12 years (he turned professional in 2002). Before this Australian Open, he had played in 35 Grand Slams without reaching the final even once. His record against world no 1 Rafael Nadal until January 2014 was depressing: he hadn’t even won a set in 12 meetings. His record against world no 2 Novak Djokovic was worse—he had lost his last 14 matches to the Serb, including two five-set losses at the US Open and Australian Open last year that left him, in his words, “crying a lot after the match."

Tennis writers had begun dismissing him as a nice talent but lacking the mental strength and fitness to make it in a Grand Slam. Wawrinka had to make a choice: either carry on with his career as before, or take some drastic measures to take his game to the next level. Unlike Roger Federer, who last beat Nadal in a Grand Slam in 2007 but waited till end-2013—his worst year on the circuit in almost a decade—to take even the basic step of dumping his outdated racquet, Wawrinka did not wait too long before choosing the latter option.

He separated from his wife in 2011 in order to focus solely on his tennis (they have since gotten back together). He got himself a new coach, Sweden’s Magnus Norman (what’s it with Swiss players hiring Swedish coaches?), who worked on making him mentally stronger. He got fitter so he would not run out of steam in those never-ending five-setters he tended to end up in. And just so he would never forget it in the course of a match, he tattooed onto his forearm a motto from another tough cookie, Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Wawrinka’s transformation left even his coach—who had earlier guided Robin Soderling to the French Open final—astounded. Consider this: at this year’s Australian Open, Wawrinka beat both Nadal and Djokovic—mentally two of the toughest players on tour—to become the first man in 21 years to beat both the number 1 and number 2 seed to lift a Grand Slam trophy. The last 34 of the 35 Grand Slams had been monopolized by the “khaas aadmi" of world tennis, also known as the Big Four: Nadal, Djokovic, Federer and Andy Murray. But Wawrinka successfully battled huge odds—and history—to realize his Grand Slam dream. And incredibly, he didn’t even have a double-handed backhand.

You only need to read the previews of the Oz Open final to realize the magnitude of Wawrinka’s achievement. I checked out a dozen. Not one gave Wawrinka the slightest chance. Even the canny and cautious Vijay Amritraj predicted on television “Nadal in four [sets]". The debate was only about how many sets Nadal would take to beat Wawrinka, not who would win.

As it turned out, the Swiss completely outplayed Nadal in the opening set before the latter developed an injury that sealed what had begun to seem very probable, if not inevitable—a Wawrinka victory. But nobody had seen this coming, least of all Wawrinka himself, though I like to flatter myself that I did, sort of.

As it happens, the only top ten tennis player I have seen live—in flesh and blood on the court, as opposed to pixels on a screen—is Stanislas Wawrinka. Due to a fortuitous set of circumstances, I was in Chennai in the first week of 2014. And so, on 4 January 2014, I found myself in Nungambakkam’s SDAT stadium to watch the then world no. 8 play Canada’s Vasek Pospisil in the semi-finals of the Chennai Open.

Just watching the 6 ft.. 4 in. Pospisil practice, it was obvious that he was a supremely talented player—though one you’ve never heard of, because he was only the 32nd best player in the whole world (he has since moved up to no. 25) and not yet eligible for concentrated media attention, which is apparently reserved for multiple Grand Slam winners.

As for Wawrinka, there were very few stories about the man who was the top seed at the Chennai Open, a tournament that is a part of the ATP World Tour 250 series, the only ATP event from India. There were more reports about how the Chennai Open, whose past participants have included the likes Rafael Nadal, Patrick Rafter and Carlos Moya, has been struggling to attract the world’s top players. Every top tournament needs Grand Slam winners to attract attention and while the 2014 Chennai Open could only manage Wawrinka, other ATP 250 events taking place around the same time were doing so much better: the Qatar Open had managed to get Nadal, while the Brisbane International had Roger Federer playing.

But the Chennai Open had Wawrinka, and it was not for nothing it had acquired a reputation as a “springboard of champions" (and not, say, “home ground of champions" or some such). Though Wawrinka had had a good 2013, making it to the semi-finals of the US Open, he was generally seen as one of the supporting actors whose job was to make the superstars look great. After all, that’s what he had been doing all these years—losing to Nadal, Djokovic and Federer in close matches. He was the kind of top class player who, alongside the Ferrers, the Berdychs, and the Tsongas, existed for the sole purpose of giving meaning to categories such as the “Big Four", a category to which they themselves would never belong.

Pospisil, though ranked more than 20 places lower, was able to play on an equal footing with Wawrinka. The Canadian lost a close first set 4-6, but broke Wawrinka in the second set to tie it at 5-5, before his back started acting up, and he retired, handing the match to the Swiss. But what remained with me long after the match got over was Wawrinka’s backhand—which was nothing like anything I had seen, either on a television or off it.

Generally, when someone praises a backhand—and I am speaking here of the single-handed backhand—they praise it for its beauty, for its grace, for its accuracy, for its consistency. Federer’s backhand, for instance, epitomizes all these qualities, and by their measure, it is easily the best backhand in the business.

But as I watched Wawrinka—and I managed to catch a few games from the court level, not far from the tram lines—I was astounded by the sheer velocity and zip of his backhand ground strokes. Pospisil, a taller, stronger, heavier, younger and more athletic-looking man than Wawrinka, had a double-handed backhand that he wielded like an axe. His forehand was a powerful weapon he used to set up points. But Wawrinka’s one-handed backhand, mostly played early, on the rise, was dictating terms to Pospisil’s double-handed backhand and even his forehand.

There was one shot in particular that Wawrinka hit, a backhand down the line from two feet behind the baseline, which instantly relegated Pospisil to the same status as yours truly: a spectator. And I remember thinking this was exactly the shot that Federer needed to play consistently against Nadal—deep into the latter’s deuce court.

His extraordinary backhand was exactly what took Wawrinka to the Australian Open title. It is conventional wisdom that it is impossible to beat Nadal with a single-handed backhand. Wawrinka just turned conventional wisdom on its head by demonstrating that a single-handed backhand can take on Nadal’s looping forehand topspin, and win.

After beating Djokovic in yet another thrilling five-setter in this year’s Oz Open quarter-finals, Wawrinka pointed to his head in a grim, unsmiling gesture: it was his way of publicly affirming his new found mental toughness. He was in tears the last time he played Djokovic at the Australian Open; this time he was in the next round.

Many believe that Federer’s problem against Nadal is more psychological than technical. If that is true, one hopes that Wawrinka’s triumph would inspire modern tennis’ most “khaas aadmi" to take a leaf out of the game’s newest “aam aadmi" champion. If he does, he would stand a better chance of cementing his case for being regarded as the greatest player of all time—a case that is being mocked by his repeated, and increasingly one-sided, losses to his Spanish nemesis.

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 30 Jan 2014, 12:02 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App