Stan Wawrinka

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez was always going to be a tricky match-up for Stan Wawrinka.  It was the nature of this shock loss that was so stunning to watch.  GGL produced a rock solid display to dispatch the Australian Open champion in four sets on Philippe Chatrier court, 6-4 5-7 6-2 6-0 in two hours and 23 minutes.  After Wawrinka appeared to have steadied the ship by breaking to win the second set, he was quite comprehensively routed by GGL in the final two sets.  Stan’s error count grew at an alarmingly rapid rate in the last two sets.  He was constructing the points well, but frequently failing to win them as he made some uncharacteristically sloppy errors all over the court.

Before I droan on about Stan, Garcia-Lopez deserves a huge amount of credit.  He played a rock solid match and deserved the win.  It was a performance that reminded me of that excellent match he played with Novak Djokovic in Monte-Carlo.  This was already the weakest quarter of the draw and Stan’s loss has completely ripped it open.  This opens up the draw substantially for the likes of Andy Murray, Fabio Fognini, Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet, Fernando Verdasco, Feliciano Lopez and GGL too.  Monfils and Gasquet have both been struggling with injuries during the clay court season, Fognini is Fognini and Murray is not reliable on clay just yet.  This quarter could go any way…

Back to Wawrinka and the way he melted in the fourth set was really quite staggering.  He missed so many forehands long in that fourth set.  Stan finished the match with 62 UNFORCED ERRORS.  2014 has been such a sensationally strange year for Stan.  He won his first Grand Slam in Australia and his first Masters 1000 title in Monte-Carlo; apart from those two performances and a title in the first week of the year in Chennai, he’s really not done much else.  Next up for Stan is the grass where he has never played particularly well.  Still stunned by this loss!