It is a year since Stan (aka Stanislas) Wawrinka shook up tennis by interrupting the rule of the Big Four in Melbourne, and evidence gathers daily that more tremors in the coming weeks, months and indeed years are as predictable as an Australian heatwave.
When he mowed down Novak Djokovic then Rafael Nadal in the space of a few days to win his first major, Wawrinka was acclaimed as an unlikely slam champion. Here was a shy but passionate arriviste who bent the stereotype, as determined to head for the nearest bar to celebrate victory as to dive into the refuge of the modern sporting beast, the ice bath. Stan, as his marketing mavens repackaged him, embraced the good times with all the comforting normality with which he endured the bad.
Nobody predicted his triumph. Djokovic, who succumbed to his muscular game in the quarter-finals, had not lost to him in eight years, and Wawrinka had not beaten Nadal in 12 attempts. Yet his victory delivered to the game the priceless commodity of uncertainty, and for that tennis should be thankful.
What came to be known as the Federer-Nadal era, exhilarating though it was, had become predictable; each big tournament before the rise of Djokovic and then Andy Murray a coronation rather than a contest.
Wawrinka’s fortunes have dipped, soared and steadied since his slam breakthrough, and he returns to the scene of his finest few hours in excellent shape, in mind and body. Nevertheless, the world No1 Djokovic remains favourite, while the No3 Nadal, creaking at 29 after wrist and back injuries, not to mention appendicitis and stunned by a string of defeats, hardly looks ready for this tournament.
As for Roger Federer and Murray, they have each hit a timely winning rhythm. The ageless Swiss, travelling with his wife and four young children, is on the verge of his 1,000th career win in Brisbane on Sunday, a number only Ivan Lendl and Jimmy Connors have reached in the open era. And Murray, after sacking long‑time support staff Dani Vallverdu and Jez Green, is heartened after blitzing Nadal in Abu Dhabi and confirming his revival with three wins in the Hopman Cup in Perth.
Yet, so regularly have the certitudes of the game been disturbed over the past year, bookmakers are again starting to look nervous. “What of the next wave?” they are thinking.
Then Wawrinka’s win over the Croatian teenager Borna Coric in Chennai this past week reminded everyone that change, the eternal aphrodisiac of sport, can be as fragile as a leaf in the wind. Not long installed inside the ATP’s top 100, Coric might have imagined when he got into the second round that Wawrinka was yesterday’s news, a familiar, weather-beaten face looking backwards rather than ahead. Coric, an exquisite talent, had, after all, announced his arrival by beating Nadal in the quarter-finals in Basel last October. The kid demanded respect. It came grudgingly.
When Coric foolishly decided to garland his stature last week with a declaration that he was “the best of my generation” no less, he invited ridicule. He said that on his best day he resembled Djokovic, in lesser moments he was more like Murray. The Scot and the Croat share a love of boxing; perhaps a quiet spar is in order.
This was hubris that begged for retribution and Wawrinka was the perfect quiet executioner, spanking the cheeky pup in two quick sets. He celebrated by hooking a couple of tennis balls out of court with a cricket bat.
Lending perspective to Coric’s rush to personal aggrandisement was Nick Kyrgios, five months older and 45 places ahead of him in the rankings (they have never met on court). The languid Australian was a more convincing conqueror of Nadal in the fourth round of Wimbledon last year and, on the available evidence, a prospect with a firmer grip on reality.
“He’s had a couple of good results and he’s already thinking that he’s playing like Djokovic or Murray,” Kyrgios told his local paper in Canberra. “You can get into a bit of trouble thinking that sort of stuff, because they by far have so much more strength than us physically and mentally. There’s a lot of young guys coming up but it’s not just about having a couple of good results here and there, it’s about staying consistent and challenging these guys on a daily basis.”
However, Djokovic lost for the first time since October in a wind-whipped Doha on Thursday to Ivo Karlovic, who added just a second world No1 scalp to his CV, alongside that of Federer. It looked more like a blip, as Sir Alex Ferguson used to describe Manchester United losses, than a decline, but defeat nevertheless mildly rattled the Serb.
It is not so easy to dismiss Nadal’s loss last week to Michael Berrer, a 34-year-old German qualifier who was 2-18 against top-tenners going in and had promised his wife this would be his last year on the Tour. Beating Nadal in three sets from 6-1 down, the cheery left-hander said he felt “no pressure”. Nadal? Curiously, he said he had been gripped by nerves. But the notion that an established great, with 14 majors in his kitbag, should be troubled by the world No127 (still without a singles title of any kind after 16 years of trying) is ludicrous.
Or is it? Since the Kyrgios mishap, the Spaniard had lost to Martin Klizan (then ranked 56), Feliciano López (then 21) and Coric (then 124). In a glorified exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi last week, Murray beat him 6-2, 6-0.
The resurgent Federer, meanwhile, had to fight through three sets in Brisbane to get past John Millman, an Australian wildcard 151 places below him in the rankings, before producing 41 minutes of irresistible magic to embarrass James Duckworth for the loss of one game, and seeing off Grigor Dimitrov 6-2, 6-2 in the semi-final on Saturday. He plays Milos Raonic on Sunday, at 9am UK time.
So they all have reason to dream. Maybe Kyrgios is the new star. Perhaps Coric will shock his betters; certainly he will not do so quietly. As for Stan, win or lose, he will stay calm, a rock in a growing storm. How fitting it would be were he to win again.
