Stanislas Wawrinka upsets the odds to beat Rafael Nadal and claim 2014 Australian Open title

Stanislas Wawrinka upsets the odds to beat Rafael Nadal and claim 2014 Australian Open title

 

World No 1 suffers a back spasm mid-match as he loses 6-3 6-2 3-6 6-3 to hand Wawrinka his first grand slam title

 

[caption id="attachment_11346" align="alignnone" width="400"] (Giant-killer: Stanislas Wawrinka beat Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal on his way to winning the title (Photo: GETTY IMAGES))[/caption]

 

Rafael Nadal was struck down by a back spasm today in the middle of the Australian Open final, turning what was promising to be a thrilling match into one of the strangest spectacles this sport has seen for years.

 

The immediate consequence is that Stan Wawrinka has joined the gilded inner circle of grand slam champions.

 

He is the first man to break the stranglehold of the “big four” since Juan Martin del Potro won the 2009 US Open.

 

But the narrative was complicated by Nadal’s injury, which knocked Wawrinka off his big-hitting game for a while.

 

The Swiss lost the third set in an otherwise dominant 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory, which was the period when Nadal was least able to move around the court.

 

This was especially ironic because Wawrinka had opened the match in rip-roaring style.

 

He was “zoning”, as the players like to say.

 

Every time Nadal hit a shot that was less than perfectly placed, Wawrinka was smacking a winner.

 

He took the first set in just 37 minutes, striking 12 clean winners to just four from Nadal.

 

Then came the start of the most peculiar passage of play.

 

Nadal pulled up dramatically after dumping a forehand in the net with the score standing at 4-6, 1-1.

 

He bent double and put a hand to his back, and had soon disappeared off the court with the trainer while Wawrinka furiously demanded to know what the problem was.

 

When Nadal came back on court after a six-minute delay, he was loudly booed – which must be a first in his history at this event.

 

Yet there was immediate evidence that he was not malingering as his first-serve speed dropped to around 80mph.

 

He could barely move along the baseline and had to rely on swinging hard at anything that came within his reach.

 

Wawrinka finished off the second set quickly, but he was beginning to become confused about his best tactics.

 

For at least half-an-hour, the Swiss stopped swinging with the same conviction, and lost the width on his groundstrokes.

 

Even though Nadal was only playing at around 20 or 30 per cent, he took the opportunities presented to him and pulled one set back.

 

If Wawrinka had continued to waver, this could have ended badly for him.

 

The commentators were starting to invoke the spectre of Guillermo Coria, the Argentine who threw away a two-set lead in the 2004 French Open final and was never the same again.

 

But the Swiss steeled himself and managed to rediscover the booming forehand that had dominated the first set.

 

Nadal’s serve speed and movement were actually picking up now, presumably as anti-inflammatory medicine kicked in, but he could not sustain his resistance with what was still a major handicap.

 

It was fitting that a Wawrinka forehand down the line – the most potent shot throughout this match – should have concluded matters after 2hr 21min of unpredictable drama.

 

“Bad luck was against me today but you really deserve it,” said Nadal afterwards.

 

“To the crowd, it’s been very emotional two weeks. I am sorry to finish this way, I tried very hard.”

 

Wawrinka replied by saying “I am really sorry for you. I hope your back is going to be fine. I still don’t know if I’m dreaming or not but I guess I will find out in the morning.”

 

Some might argue that there will always be an invisible asterisk against this result.

 

But after knocking out Novak Djokovic in the quarter-final, and then opening this match with a fusillade of brilliant winners, Wawrinka has genuinely made his own luck.

 

He has become the first man to beat Nadal and Djokovic in the same slam and the first to beat both the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds at any major tournament since Sergi Bruguera at the 1993 French Open.

 

Wawrinka fully deserved to lift the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup at the end of the night.

 

(Simon Briggs)

 

(The Telegraph, 26 Sunday January 2014 The Roman)