Australian Open: Stan Wawrinka – Cold start into the first Major

Stan Wawrinka goes to the first Grand Slam tournament of the year with virtually no preparation. The Australian Open Champion of 2014 is still just happy to be back again.

Basically, Stan Wawrinka has had an outstanding season in 2017, with only a single win at home in Geneva in the final against Mischa Zverev. Immediately after that, Wawrinka entered the final of the French Open, where he witnessed the roar of record champion Rafael Nadal from the best seat in the stadium. The semi-final victory against Andy Murray, it should remain the last match win of the Swiss for the whole year. After his second outing on grass (the first-round defeat at Queen’s Club against Feliciano Lopez was followed by the first-round defeat at Wimbledon against Daniil Medvedev), Wawrinka had to undergo a knee operation and stop the sport until further notice.

At the end of the year, however, the Romand was ranked among the top ten players in the world.

However, the chances that the 2014 champion would actually compete at the Australian Open were rather unfavourable. Stan Wawrinka canceled all kinds of preparatory tournaments, including the tie-break-tens event, which was supposed to bring the 32-year-old in match form for the “Happy Slam”.

Wawrinka, who has been training in Melbourne Park for a few days now, has certainly done well to return to the circle of colleagues,”I am very, very happy to be back on the tour and to see the sunshine,”said the current number nine in Melbourne. For him it is extremely important to play matches now, the long break will have left its mark. Physical: In the fall of 2017, Wawrinka, whose game depends on his athletics, told a Swiss daily newspaper that he had lost most of his muscle mass.

Just a few weeks ago, Wawrinka was cautiously pessimistic about the chances of a performance in Melbourne at the Monte Carlo practice. Wawrinka showed up in pictures with Novak Djokovic or Grigor Dimitrov, although not in action.

Craig Tiley, tournament director of the Australian Open, does not challenge that. After the cancellations of Serena Williams, Andy Murray and Kei Nishikori, Tiley is grateful for every star guest:”There have been many question marks about Stan, but he’s ready to play,”Tiley said,”I watched Stan train. Of course, in order to play best-of-five matches, seven of them within two weeks, many things would have to come together for him,” but where, if not in Australia?