Stanislas Wawrinka: Are we witnessing the rise of another Swiss ace in the making?

Stanislas Wawrinka

In Melbourne, as the sun came down for one final time on Sunday, a champion emerged out of the shadows. It was a champion who had been in the shadows of one of the greatest tennis players of all-time, if not the greatest. After playing second fiddle to Roger Federer for far too long, the Australian Open was a sign that the winds of change have finally started to blow.

When Stanislas Wawrinka served out the biggest win of his life with a love game, he made the whole world stand up and take notice. Over the past decade or so, the words Switzerland and tennis used in the same sentence meant only one man. And that man was Federer. But, after taming Rafael Nadal and claiming his maiden Australian Open, that might just be about to change.

And the writing was already on the wall. When Federer lost his semi-final against Nadal, it was the end of an era. Not the end of Federer as a player, but the end of his astounding 13-year reign as the Swiss No 1. And whilst the whole world let out a collective moan, there was one man, who was sitting silently in his hotel room, feeling quietly satisfied about the recent turn of events.

Although the tide was in his favor, there was still a whole ocean in front of him. In the final, Wawrinka went up against a man he had never beaten in his entire career. Let alone beating Nadal, he hadn’t even won a single set against the Spaniard and was 0-12 against him. Nobody gave the Swiss player a chance, not after Nadal saw off Federer in the previous round. Nadal was looking to become the first player in the Open Era to claim all four Grand Slams at least twice and move to within three of Federer’s all-time record of 17 titles.

History was on Nadal’s side. Then again, the same was said of Novak Djokovic before his quarter-final encounter against Wawrinka. And Wawrinka had already gotten the better of the Serbian, whom he hadn’t beaten in 14 straight matches. So, could he do it again? Beating Djokovic is one thing, but beating Nadal on the back of his most impressive performance of 2014 yet in the semi-final was quite something else.

And whilst the whole world believed that Nadal was going to go into the record books and inch closer to Federer, there was one man who believed otherwise. Testament to that, is the tattoo on his forearm, which reads: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” And by the time Sunday arrived, Wawrinka was ready, ready to take on the biggest challenge of his career and fail, if that was what it took.

But Wawrinka didn’t wither away and fade like a falling leaf, instead stood firm like a raging bull and pulled off the impossible. On a brilliantly lit Australia day, there was a celebratory mood in the air and fireworks in the distance too. Undeterred by all of that, there was a 28-year-old Swiss player who entered the arena with just one thing on his mind, “attack.” And attack he did, as Wawrinka showed Nadal, very early on in the match, that he meant business.

Wawrinka gave Nadal no time to work with, he was at him right from the outset. And one couldn’t but wonder at the marvelous array of strokes that the Swiss ace pulled off; some of which bore a striking resemblance to another legendary Swiss player, one he was about to overtake in the rankings. And in no time, he had wrapped up the first set by putting up an attacking display par excellence.

After that, there was no stopping the man from Lausanne who was determined to become the first player since Sergei Bruguera in 1993 to defeat the top two players enroute to Grand Slam glory. And although Nadal got back into the game, after winning the third set, Wawrinka ensured that it was nothing more than mere consolation by wrapping up the game in four sets. In the process, he also became only the second player after Juan Martin Del Potro (US Open, 2009) to win a Grand Slam tournament since 2005, whilst being ranked outside the top four.

And as the sun came down and the shadows set in, Wawrinka finally managed to break free of the cobwebs that have been holding him back and emerged out onto the light whilst shattering many records in the process. The most telling of which was the fact that not only did he become only the second Swiss man, after 17-time champion Federer to win a Grand Slam singles title, he also showed the world that the future of Swiss tennis, or even world tennis for that matter is in very safe hands.

Bad back or not, Nadal was certainly soundly beaten in the final and who’s to say that a fully fit Nadal would have overcome the wonderful Wawrinka, who was playing some of the best tennis of his life. Now ranked number three in the world and with two titles under his belt already this year, the Swiss star is high on confidence and has put the gauntlet down to the rest. Will anybody else catch him? Or, are we witnessing the rise of yet another Swiss era?