WAWRINKA AIMING HIGHER
No. 3 ranking, first major title increase his drive to succeed
Stanislas Wawrinka dented the established order in men’s tennis by winning the first major of the year, the Australian Open.
Now comes the hard part: Backing it up.
In his first tournament since Melbourne, No. 3 Wawrinka — who leapfrogged Roger Federer as the new top-ranked Swiss — reached the fourth round of last week’s BNP Paribas Open.
But all was not right despite the defeat being his first in 14 matches this season. Wawrinka turned negative in the three-set loss to 18th-ranked Kevin Anderson of South Africa and said he felt mentally spent.
“It took me a lot of energy after the Australian Open to realize what really happened, for sure,” Wawrinka told USA TODAY Sports in an interview in Indian Wells, Calif., last week.
“For the first time I was a little bit scared not to play good and not to be ready for the tournament,” he said of the attention and pressure, plus the rust of a nearly month-long break since the Australian Open.
Fear, in general, does not seem to be in French-speaking Wawrinka’s vocabulary. As a kid he recklessly barreled down Swiss mountains on skis. He enjoys skydiving. His game is built on derring-do, most notably his stunning one-handed backhand.
“I was quite crazy,” he says. “I’m still crazy.”
For the past 15 months, that same audacity and intrepid shotmaking have fueled his rise and intimidated opponents.
To keep his place in the top five or win another Grand Slam tournament or two, Wawrinka knows he must manage increased expectations while sticking to his bold brand of tennis. That means disregarding immediate results, such as those at this week’s Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, and focusing on fundamentals.
“The priority is the way I’m practicing,” he said. “If I do that well, for sure I’m going to have great results the rest of the year.”
Wawrinka is still pinching himself after holding off No. 2 Novak Djokovic in a five-set quarterfinal win and besting No. 1 Rafael Nadal, who was hobbled by a bad back, in the Australian Open final.
Afterward, Wawrinka returned to his home near Lausanne and spent three-plus weeks with his wife and young daughter, who had not traveled to Australia, and barely touched his rackets. He needed the time to rest emotionally and psychologically process his big win.
“I think it’s still strange when I say I’m No. 3 in the world, because for me it’s amazing, really,” he said.
But success, Wawrinka has learned, also intoxicates.
“I realized also last year that (the) more I was winning, (the) more I want to win,” he said. “Like it starts to be addictive.”
He’s learning to balance offcourt demands that come with his stature as a Grand Slam champion. Before the Indian Wells event, Wawrinka spent a day in Los Angeles filming a SportsCenter commercial, did an interview with CNN and attended an NHL game.
“I just need to be careful with the schedule, not to overdo (it), because then you forget what’s the priority,” he said.
Wawrinka, who turns 29 on March 28, is more seasoned than many first-time major winners, a maturity that should help him manage the demands.
“I think the good thing for me is he’s not 18,” said close friend Federer, who teamed with Wawrinka to win the 2008 Olympic doubles gold medal in Beijing. “He’s been on tour for a while and he knows that success is just an extra mega-bonus for him.”
Wawrinka’s coach, Magnus Norman of Sweden, is familiar with the stress, internal and external, of breakout success.
At 24, Norman climbed to No. 2 after finishing runner-up to Gustavo Kuerten in the 2000 French Open.
He never advanced that far in a major again and retired four years later because of hip injuries.
“I put a lot pressure on myself,” Norman, 37, said. “I wish I would have had someone there to tell me what to do and how to think.”
Norman is pushing Wawrinka to stick to routines and keep up his physical strength. “It’s a new challenge for him, which makes it interesting for me, to guide him through this stage of his career,” Norman said.
If Wawrinka has had to adjust his 2014 goals to firm up his place in the top five, as opposed to staying in the top 10, he hasn’t abandoned longstanding ambitions — namely to lead Switzerland to its first Davis Cup title. With Federer on board, the Swiss have a good chance. They will face Kazakhstan in April’s quarterfinals.
Wawrinka also is looking to back up his first Grand Slam title by filling other gaps on his résumé, like winning a Masters 1,000 or 500-level tournament title.
If it doesn’t happen in Miami, the clay season is around the corner. That’s where his best results have come.
“On clay, I know that if my level is there I can be really dangerous,” Wawrinka said.
A fearless Wawrinka is certainly a danger to everyone else in men’s tennis.