Stanislas Wawrinka won his 11th consecutive final and now stands on the cusp of a career slam after beating Novak Djokovic in the final of the US Open on Monday. The Swiss came back from losing the first set 6-7 to win the next three 6-4, 7-5, 6-3. Top seed Djokovic struggled with blisters and took medical timeouts, and also found it hard to cope with the serves of the Swiss. Wawrinka, 31, now only has the Wimbledon trophy missing from his cabinet.
Djokovic looked to be running away with the match at the start of the first set and at that point, it appeared he would cruise to his 13th major title. However, Wawrinka's booming serves and a unique knack of eking out crucial points during rallies soon had his opponent on the mat. After one walkover and two retirements during his road to the final, Djokovic looked short of match practice.
In the first set, Djokovic powered away, stretching Wawrinka to to the far corners of the court on the baseline. Even then, there were signs of rustiness from the Serb as he delivered a couple of weak backhand returns, and it was his powerful baseline play that saw him breeze through three consecutive games, which helped him win the set.
Wawrinka was forced to make unforced errors early on. The 31-year-old was a aiming to go long, and at 5-3, had made as many 16 unforced errors. From set point, the world No. 3 forced the issue, making Djokovic stretch on the baseline. There wasn't a let up with Wawrinka's serve either and it was a double fault from Djokovic that made the game 5-4, and minutes later, five all.
The world No.1 suddenly rattled, quickly made it 6-5 but struggled with Wawrinka's serve, and the set went into a tie-break. A 19-shot rally took Djokovic 2-0 up but Wawrinka got one back through a series of overhead backhands and drop shots. With a clinical backhand pass, Djokovic got his two-point lead back in the game, screaming "come on" with his arms raised at the crowd, whose loyalties were firmly behind Wawrinka. Djokovic shut the door on the set, winning it 7-6.
Wawrinka broke in the fourth game of the second set, going 3-1 up with a stylish one-handed backhand. There was no sign of Wawrinka rectifying the increasing number of unforced errors that he was accumulating but he continued to smash a number of aces. At 4-5, Djokovic had a sniff but yet again, Wawrinka was irresistible during the rallies, and went on to clinch the second set.
Djokovic broke in the third set and there was no saying how the contest would swing at 4-all. By now, Wawrinka's ploy of making the defending champion go low and wide from the baseline was paying rich dividends, and held on to win the third set.
Wawrinka kept his foot on the throttle in the fourth set and went 2-0 up.!He also cashed in when there was a break point opportunity, something that Djokovic had failed to do through the match. This was around the time when the latter was struggling with his fitness. Wawrinka even had a word with the referee about Djokovic's generous use of his fitness trainer.
Wawrinka's dominance grew in the final set and he hit a sumptuous forehand volley to get the championship point. A tired Djokovic mishit his backhand to hand the title to his opponent.
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