Stanislas Wawrinka slams Nadal in Melbourne to win first Grand Slam

Switzerland’s Stanislaus Wawrinka raised an extra notch in his tennis artistry by defeating world tennis no.1 Rafael Nadal to win his first ever Grand Slam title.

One of the highlights of the game was when Nadal took a medical time-out in the second set at 2-1 down and an initially irate Wawrinka being left in the dark concerning Nadal’s injury took his cool to return a perfect service game to go into a 3-1 lead. Nadal returned to serve subsequently and faulted twice after 15-15 to gift Wawrinka 15-30, which became 15-40 and Wawrinka took the last point by a deep slice into the base line to break Nadal and take a 4-1 lead.

Nadal was immediately stretched on the floor and got a quick back massage from the physio. Wawrinka continued to serve in the sixth game of the second set with two quick aces of serve with Nadal turning the third serve into the net. . Nadal showed some resurgence to try and turn things around by holding Wawrinka to deuce but a fired Wawrinka served an ace to get the advantage and played a backhand winner to go 5-1.

It was a topsy-turvy seventh game of the second set as Nadal showed a lot of difficulty traversing the court and it was evident his serve had departed from him, deucing twice but holding on to win. Wawrinka returned to serve and after double faulting in his first serve he stretched a disinterested Nadal to win the second set at 6-2.

Nadal subjected his lower back (left side) to the physio again at the interval reeling in agony as the physio worked away to prepare him for the third set which looked like his last for the night. He took the first two sets right under Wawrinka’s nose, serving the first and breaking Wawrinka subsequently in the second. In a quick change of fortune Nadal rose to a 3-love lead even when it was obvious he could hardly move around the court. A dejected Wawrinka barely did anything special and Nadal looked like he was going to run away with the set at 5-2 but Wawrinka pulled a perfect service gave to restore some hope and reducing the deficit to 5-3 after which Nadal survived a deuce to win the third set at 6-3.

The fourth set was all about a nervy Wawrinka and how he would cope mentally judging from the fact that it seemed he had pressed a self-destruct button, empathizing with his injured opponent. Things continued to go down well with Nadal as he even boldly stopped the match to review a call on Wawrinka’s stroke after the umpire had erroneously called it in, and eventually levelling the fourth set at 2-2. Wawrinka took his serve to lead at 3-2 and returned to his resolute self to break Nadal and lead 4-2, but Nadal broke right back with a glimmer of hope at 4-3. And when you thought Wawrinka was slipping through it, he broke Nadal’s serve and served for the match at 5-3 quickly racing to a 40-0 lead before playing a forehand winner on Nadal’s return of his second serve to become the 2014 Australian Open winner; winning in 6-3; 6-2; 3-6; 6-3

Enroute to the finals, Wawrinka dislodged favourite and defending champion Novak Djokovic becoming the third man since 1993 at the French Open to defeat both first and second seeds in a Grand Slam. He was a champion in the making as was evident after enduring a gruelling semi-final loss to Djokovic this time last year. He also becomes the third Swiss to have won a Grand Slam title after Roger Federer and Martina Hingis. He will also rise from his no. 8 ranking to be no. 3 in the world tomorrow morning. He goes home with $2,650,000 (Australian Dollars). Congrats Stan.