ATP World Tour Finals - Summarising the tales of the season

Waiting for Godot

Juan Martin del Potro

The ‘comeback’ from injury by Juan Martin del Potro continues to be excruciatingly slow. As observers of the game, we are still waiting for the Tower of Tandil to finally hit his stride, to reach the place on the tennis totem-pole where he belongs. The popular perception remains that this place is in the mythical ‘Big Four’ category at the top of the hierarchy and not in the ‘Tier-1 Contenders’ category where he currently resides.

This year, he seemed to make progress, with some consistent results though the season, a memorable match against Djokovic in Wimbledon, and some big wins on hard courts in the fall. But frustratingly, he continues to suffer the kind of sporadic losses that prevent him from being compared to a Nadal or a Djokovic.

The latest was in the ATP Tour Finals last week, where an extended appearance, up to at least the finals, would have gone a long way in establishing an excellent 2013 report card for him. Instead, the big man conjured to lose to Federer, a man he ‘should’ beat on current form, after holding a winning position in a do-or-die encounter, and proceeded to exit at the round-robin stage itself.

Interestingly, Federer’s current role in the greater scheme of things seems to be that of a testing-board for the first wave of top-tier challengers. The likes of Berdych, Ferrer and Wawrinka should fancy their changes against a possibly ageing star, before considering a climb to the rarefied heights of Nadal and Djokovic.

On that front, del Potro came up short to end his year, not once but twice, considering his loss to Federer at Paris as well just a week earlier.

So we continue to wait for del Potro to take that step up in consistency of results over players he ‘should’ beat. But the longer we wait, the more we might believe that he has already reached his peak in the pecking order.

Carpe diem!

Stanislas Wawrinka

He may not have won the official award for the ATP’s Most Improved Player of the Year (even though he was nominated), but Stanislas Wawrinka surely has had a season to remember. He began the year with a bang, with what was, in my opinion, the best singles match of the year – a five-set barn-burner against Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open. He ended the season on fire as well, with a semifinal appearance on debut at the World Tour Finals.

He played some excellent matches against Berdych and Ferrer in the tournament, continuing with the consistent results he has had through the year against top opposition. Of course, gaping holes still remain in the resume. He is still to win even a set against Nadal in his career, and he failed to convert opportunities into victories against Djokovic at Grand Slams, but nevertheless, Wawrinka has seen a dramatic increase in his profile over the year.

He no longer languishes under the shadow of Federer, but is now actually pushing to become the top-ranked Swiss player. On current trends, that may become a reality sooner rather than later.

Wawrinka himself credits these results to an increased level of confidence in his own abilities that he has learnt to possess, and a greater inclination to seize the moment as it presents itself. That is easy to believe looking at his game, which is a pleasure to behold with his ripping groundstrokes looking to seize the initiative whenever possible.

So the World Tour Finals of 2013 managed to remain true to its ambitions – to showcase the best of the current ATP year. At various points in the week, we were treated to Djokovic’s determination, Nadal’s inspiration, Federer’s poignancy, del Potro’s frustration and Wawrinka’s brilliance.

As the season-ending marker on the ATP calendar, it highlighted the storylines that we had diligently followed through the year, and managed to leave us excited for the next season to begin.

Towards that end, this might have been the perfect curtain call for 2013.