#360view: Wawrinka’s mercurial genius is worth waiting for

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  • Champion again: Wawrinka.

    Of all the men’s grand slam champions who are currently active on tour, Stan Wawrinka has got to be the most confounding, least conforming and pleasantly surprising.

    Held back by lack of self belief throughout most of his career, Wawrinka epitomises the term ‘late-bloomer’. 

    In an era where Rafael Nadal captured his first of 14 slams at 19, Roger Federer won his first Wimbledon at 21, Novak Djokovic triumphed in Melbourne for the first time at 20, Juan Martin del Potro had his stunning US Open also aged 20, and Andy Murray won his maiden slam at 25 – but was already a finalist at 21; Wawrinka hadn’t even made a grand slam semi-final until the 2013 US Open, aged 28 and competing in his 12th year on tour.

    The Swiss certainly took the longer route to join tennis’ elite club of major champions but when he finally did it, at the Australian Open last year and the French Open last Sunday, it was in explosive fashion.

    Before the final in Paris, Wawrinka’s coach Magnus Norman said that in order to compete at his best, the Swiss needs to be in a state of “borderline anger”. While he may not have been bellowing on court against Djokovic, his aggressive shots spoke much louder.

    Norman refuses to take credit but it is under the Swede’s guidance that Wawrinka has managed to open the tap that had been blocking all this genius inside of him.

    In the two years they’ve been working together, an unbridled version of Wawrinka has been showing up on the big stage but it is also often no where to be found on the smaller ones.

    Three years ago, Wawrinka asked Severin Luthi, Federer’s coach and Swiss Davis Cup captain, what he thought he could achieve in the sport. Luthi told him that was not the right question and that all he needs to do is work his hardest and do his best and then evaluate at the end of his career.

    The transformation from that Wawrinka – a player full of doubt – to the confident one we’re seeing right now is remarkable.

    He still doesn’t look the fittest, nor is he the most consistent. His personal life is a mess and he can still lose an opening round in Indian Wells to Robin Haase. But Wawrinka now knows he can beat the very best when he is at his best.

    Just like he says he never dreamed of winning the French Open even when he won it as a junior, Wawrinka doesn’t dream of being a machine that can win everything all year round. Playing the tennis of his life for two weeks every once in a while is currently satisfactory enough for him. 

    If that means we’ll get to see the Wawrinka we saw in Paris, again in a couple of slams’ time, then we certainly can’t complain!

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