One of Tomas Berdych and Stanislas Wawrinka will make the 2014 Australian Open men’s final.  This tournament has been rather peculiar in that all the upsets are occurring at the business end.  This is a huge, huge match for both players with fantastic chances for both to make the final.  Here are my thoughts.

Stanislas Wawrinka

Stanislas Wawrinka last beat Novak Djokovic in 2006.  Djokovic had won 14 straight matches against Wawrinka.  Djokovic had won 25 consecutive matches at the Australian Open.  Djokovic had won 28 consecutive matches on the ATP tour.  All records were smashed on Tuesday night when Wawrinka beat the reigning Australian Open champion, 2-6 6-4 6-2 3-6 9-7 in another epic duel on the Rod Laver Arena lasting exactly 4 hours.  This was the third time in a row at a Grand Slam that Djokovic and Wawrinka had played five sets.

It was a majestic effort from Wawrinka, who had been through so much heartache at the hands of the Serb.  Surprisingly it was Djokovic who buckled first, playing two terrible points in the final game of the match.  Despite Djokovic’s revival between the US Open and the World Tour Finals in 2013, his run at the last four Grand Slams has seen some very tough losses where mentally, he has blinked in several of those matches.

Tomas Berdych

Wawrinka now takes on Tomas Berdych, who took out David Ferrer in a four set quarter-final, 6-1 6-4 2-6 6-4.  I happened to catch the last couple of sets and it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable watch.  Ferrer was making a lot of mistakes and played a shocking service game to give away the advantage in the fourth set.  I seem to miss all of Berdych’s best moments because when I started watched, he proceeded to lose the plot.  Many people out there tipped the Berd and he came through well in the end against the most dogged of competitors.  Berdych has now reached the semi-finals of all four Grand Slams, which is a really impressive achievement.

Wawrinka leads the head-to-head by 8 wins to 5; excluding Davis Cup matches, Wawrinka has won their last six on tour including the opener to last year’s World Tour Finals where Stanley won in three sets, 6-3 6-7(0) 6-3.  Berdych has reached a Grand Slam final before back at Wimbledon in 2010.  This is brand new territory for Wawrinka, but he showed a great deal of class in knocking out Djokovic and proved that mentally, he can do it.  There will be nerves and I am not expecting this to be a particularly high quality match between Berdych and Wawrinka; I do though expect it to be tight, tense, gripping and down to the wire.  Heart says Stan, head says Stan too.

Prediction: Wawrinka to beat Berdych in 5 sets