WAWRINKA HAS MIXED FEELINGS

Wawrinka will be left to reflect on his performance at the Australian Open this year with mixed feelings. He progressed into the third round of the tournament, beating Benoit Paire in the first round and completing a four set victory over Marcus Baghdatis before falling against the in-form Spaniard Nicolas Almagro. The Swiss competitor was seeded number 21 and in the end couldn’t quite improve on the predictions by making the last 16.

The number 10 seed proved too strong for Stanislas, and took the match in straight sets, although Wawrinka only relinquished the first set after a tie break in which he should have done better than to collect a measly two points. The match ended 7-6 (7-2), 6-2, 6-4, and Wawrinka will look back on the match and perhaps point to the huge 49 unforced errors as the main reason for defeat, but credit must be given to Almagro who kept it tight and played some superb tennis in the second and third sets.

The Spaniard had to deal with the pressure of a terrible head-to-head record against the Swiss number 2, but this hardly seemed to register in his mind on the day, and he will go into future clashes with confidence high. Before the third round encounter the record was 5-1 in Wawrinka’s favour, and the two players also competed together as juniors, so they knew each other’s game well enough not to face any surprises.

Despite his average performance in Melbourne this year, Wawrinka’s career is slowly improving, and during the past 2 years he has reached an impressive 5 quarterfinals of major competitions along the way, as well as securing titles at Chennai and Casablanca at smaller events. He has also taken some big scalps, defeating the world number 6 Berdych last year in Chennai, and of course Andy Murray at the 2010 US Open. At 26 years of age he still lacks the breakthrough into the top ten, but still has plenty of time and the necessary talent to do so.