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Wawrinka, Nadal and Two Unforeseen Opponents: Fear and Pain
By CRAIG O’SHANNESSYJAN. 27, 2014

Pain and fear are two subplots that can lurk in the background for athletes.

Rarely do they command center stage, but every so often the physical and mental battles that athletes try to hide come out at a main event.

During the men’s Australian Open final on Sunday, Stanislas Wawrinka showed fear and Rafael Nadal showed pain as the tennis world watched a match unfold in stunning fashion, from Wawrinka’s nearly perfect play to Nadal’s debilitating back injury to Wawrinka’s overcoming himself as much as his opponent in a daring victory.

Wawrinka upset Nadal, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, to claim his first Grand Slam single title. He will jump to No. 3 from No. 8 in the world rankings and further cement his place as one of the nicest guys to step on a tennis court.

There were times, particularly in the opening set, when Wawrinka seemed to play the best tennis of his life.

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The blueprint to dominating Nadal at the Australian Open was written at Rod Laver Arena in 2008, when Jo-Wilfried Tsonga defeated him in three sets in a semifinal. Early in Sunday’s match, it appeared that Wawrinka had simply hit the copy and paste buttons on that match, sending devastating slice serves out wide in the deuce court, raking backhands down the line and punishing Nadal’s forehand wide in the ad court.

Wawrinka’s coach, Magnus Norman, did an outstanding job preparing his player for the final. Norman’s signature was all over the match and the tournament. Norman, who reached No. 2 in the world as a player, advanced to the Australian Open semifinals in 2000 before losing to Yevgeny Kafelnikov in straight sets. He was a ferocious competitor who could punish an opponent from the back of the court — much the way Wawrinka dominated Nadal in the opening set.

In the first game, with Wawrinka serving at 30-15, Nadal hit two heavy crosscourt forehands only to find the ball coming back with extra angle from Wawrinka’s backhand, leading Nadal to hit an errant shot on his forehand and send the ball wide behind the alley. This would clearly not be the ad-court forehand fiesta Nadal had enjoyed in his semifinal win over Wawrinka’s Swiss countryman Roger Federer.

Wawrinka made a statement serving at 1-1 by owning Nadal’s favorite patterns. At 15-0, Wawrinka served wide in the ad court and went back behind Nadal with a forehand that seemed to unnerve him. At 30-15, Wawrinka ran wide in the ad court to hit a forehand. Nadal moved to again cover the crosscourt shot, but this time Wawrinka crushed it down the line for a winner. At 40-15, Wawrinka almost came out his shoes hitting a backhand winner down the line.

Trailing by 2-1, Nadal played a bad service game with a terrible drop shot, a double fault and a weak backhand volley. He was pushed around in a baseline exchange on break point that resulted in a backhand slice barely making the net.

Wawrinka had surged to a 4-1 lead in 17 minutes, and with Nadal serving at 30-15, Wawrinka again owned the ad court with three bruising backhands. He sent a fourth backhand down the line for a stunning winner that was tactical genius. He would lose the game, but the message had been sent: It was Wawrinka who was in charge from the back of the court.

Wawrinka soon led by 5-2 and had hit 11 winners to Nadal’s 3.

At 5-3, a bizarre game unfolded as Wawrinka came back from 0-40 to take the set. Nadal got a look at three consecutive second serves but could not find the court with any of his returns. He missed his fourth consecutive return off a first serve at deuce before Wawrinka hit an ace wide to clinch the set. On five consecutive points in a crucial stage of a Grand Slam final, Nadal did not put a ball in the court.

Wawrinka broke Nadal at love in the opening game of the second set with a sharp-angle, laser backhand winner off a first serve. Things that you don’t often see in a season were now occurring just about every point.




Wawrinka then held for 2-0, and with Nadal serving at 40-15, the focus of the match shifted from the skill of Wawrinka’s shot-making to the shooting pain in Nadal’s back.

Nadal hit a second serve down the middle and then dumped a forehand into the net, took two steps to his right, stopped, grabbed his back and bent over. The agony on his face was disheartening. He left the court for treatment after winning the game, but he would not be the same.

Nadal said in his postmatch news conference that he had felt back pain during warm-ups.

When he was serving early in the second set, he said, “a bad movement” led to a feeling that was “very stiff, very bad.”

The problem for Wawrinka was that he was now playing a completely different opponent who hit the ball at different speeds, went for winners with reckless abandon and had no patterns to decipher and dismantle. These things can make an injured opponent more dangerous.

Nadal won the third set and climbed back into the match as Wawrinka appeared nervous waiting for Nadal to miss.

It was not until Wawrinka broke Nadal at 4-3 in the fourth set that he finally got back on track. Wawrinka hit a forehand winner down the line to break for a 5-3 lead. He clenched his fist and looked at Norman pointing at his head, and then punched himself in the head five times, seemingly to knock some sense back into his brain and the fear of failing out of it.

A tattoo of a Samuel Beckett quotation on his left forearm tells much about Wawrinka: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Wawrinka has learned one of sports’ great lessons: Failing is but a necessary steppingstone to unimaginable success.