In 2014, he became the first reigning Australian Open champion to lose in the first round of the subsequent French Open since Petr Korda in 1998.
In 2015, he won his second Grand Slam beating Novak Djokovic in the final at Roland Garros.
In 2016, he lost to Andy Murray as defending champion in the semi-finals.
In 2017, he was the runner-up to Rafael Nadal.
In 2018, he will go out of the Top 250 after yet another first-round loss, incidentally to the same player who defeated him four years back.
In a twisted way, his results at the French Open are reflection on just how Stan Wawrinka’s tennis career has turned on its head, again.
The Swiss player is a three-time Grand Slam champion who’s highest career-ranking in world is No 3. But a knee injury and surgery in 2017 meant that he was out for half a year and could not find his form or full fitness on return and 2018 has been a series of lows for him, with the most devastating one coming on Monday.
The 33-year-old arrived at Roland Garros having won just one match on clay in Geneva last week, his first event in three months. And in the first round of French Open, the world No 30 was beaten in a five-set thriller 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 by the Spanish world number 67 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
While the loss might not be entirely unexpected given his struggle since his return from a surgery, the implication on his ranking is huge.
With 1200 points to defend as the last year’s beaten finalist, he is set to drop about 226 spots to No. 256 in the world. This means no direct entries into the main draw of tournaments, unless given wildcards, and definitely no seeding.
While consistency at the highest-level has never been his strong suit, he is the same player who momentarily forced the ‘Big Four’ to be the ‘Big Five’ and now he is going to slip out of the Top 250 is a big blow.
That is how much hinged on one match.
Five-set battle
In five-setter that swung both ways, the 23rd seed started on the worst foot, losing his opening serve to love and needing a medical timeout after just six games. Given his recent run of early losses, this looked like it. But he held on to his inner reserve of strength and found his rhythm painting the lines with his crunching forehands and that dangerous backhand.
After saving a break point to serve out the third set, it looked like finally the “Stanimal” we have seen often in the past was unleashed. He even broke in game five of the fourth set to come agonisingly close to victory, but somehow lost steam and went down in the tie-breaker.
Would he have enough in the tank to get through the decider? Evidently not, as he went down easily in the fifth set to bow out early in yet another tournament this year.
Garcia Lopez himself is no rookie, the 34-year-old is competing in his 15 French Open and he used all the experience to fight from being down two sets to one and exploit Wawrinka’s weaknesses.
The long climb back
But the bigger question on the day was what exactly this weakness is. Was it that troublesome knee again?
The Swiss had sat out the second half of 2017 after a knee operation following a first-round exit at Wimbledon in June last year. He then spent eight weeks on crutches and missed the last six months of the 2017 season.
But unlike his compatriot Roger Federer, his return to the tour was no fairytale as he lost in the second round of the Australian Open to unheralded Tennys Sandgren, before a series of early losses and retirements forced him to take more time and skip the North American hard-court swing.
But even after more than nine months of recovery, it seems that the former champion is not up to speed.
Thankfully, he allayed fears of this being recurrence of the same injury, but said that it was a lot to with mental preparation and the grind of a five-setter. “I knew I could win; my physical and mental level is almost there. I was very close today... At the same time, I haven’t played a best-of-five sets match in one year. So even when you’re practising, you can’t play with that pressure,” he said after the match.
If this was indeed the knee again, it could have meant curtains for the 33-year-old. But while he is undoubtedly crushed, Wawrinka is not giving up this easily, he says he is willing to grind it out on the lower rungs of the tour.
“The ranking doesn’t lie. For sure, I’m going to require some wildcards. If I have to play Challenger [tournaments], I don’t have a problem with that. I won three Grand Slams in my career and I know what it takes to do it. I’m playing well, feeling good and I’m ready to win,” he said.
This is an encouraging perspective after the demotivating loss. In a way, this is to be expected from the guy who wears his attitude on his sleeve, or rather his forearm. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better,” the quote from Samuel Beckett is tattooed on his hand. Wawrinka is ready to fail better.
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