Stan Wawrinka: "Roger Federer was like a big brother on the tour"
Stan Wawrinka speaks in a large interview with the Swiss magazine L'Illustré about his greatest successes and reveals how one of his really big competitors, Roger Federer , supported him at the beginning.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Jul 18, 2020, 07:18 pm
A look at the Grand Slam winners since 2005 reveals a rather short list. There is, for example, the Australian Open, which only three different players have ever won. Or the French Open, where Rafael Nadal can take the title home twelve times in these 15 years. The greatest variety of winners is offered by the US Open, where seven different players were able to enter the winners list.
Wawrinka in the elite circle
This monoculture in the winning lists can clearly be traced back to the Big Three, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, who dominated the majors of the past fifteen years almost at will and who mostly made their victory among themselves. This not only shows the fact that there were so few different winners, it also shows that there were only two players at all who have won two or more Grand Slams since then.
One of them is Stan Wawrinka, who was on the list of winners from 2014 to 2016 at the Australian Open, the French Open and finally also at the US Open. "It is clearly the Australian Open (note 2014) that shaped my career. It is a Grand Slam, there is nothing about it. On January 26, 2014 I was at the top of my life. Hyper-relaxed. The dream" , the Swiss recalls today in conversation with the magazine L'Illustré , the day when he was also able to hold his first - so much sought- after - Grand Slam trophy in his hands.
A man who played a large part in it was and is at the same time one of Stan Wawrinka's biggest competitors - Roger Federer. "At the beginning of my career," recalls the Swiss, "I was able to rely on Roger's advice before I took on the best. He was like a big brother on the tour." In addition to the advice, it was especially the training with the 20-time Grand Slam champion that brought Wawrinka to where he is today.
"Few young players have had the chance to train with a champion of this level. I've always loved learning from others, and I often say that I owe much of my Grand Slam titles to the Big Three "I am certainly the player who trained the most with them. I watched them, I saw many of their games," says Wawrinka, who sees the positive aspects of being active with such athletes at the same time.
The greatest regret of his career
In everything that, according to Federer, he owes to Wawrinka, it is a defeat against the very one that the Swiss sees today as one of the most difficult of his career. The biggest regret of his career - according to Wawrinka - would have been the Masters semi-final in 2014 when he lost to Federer after four match balls were awarded.
"I had to win, and I didn't do what it took to get there that day. It was a Masters semi-final, the most popular tournament after the Grand Slams that only the top eight players in the world could take part in. It would have been great to be able to play against Djokovic in the final and hope for victory. I missed this opportunity. It was very, very difficult. I hardly slept the next night, "Wawrinka remembers that defeat painfully.
A few days later, Federer met again when Wawrinka started with the Swiss Davis Cup team. At this point, Wawrinka no longer had any resentment - on the contrary: "Roger came to us two days later because he was injured. When he arrived, we only looked at each other with a smile that meant everything to us. The chapter was closed . "