Stanislas Wawrinka and the self-belief factor: Is he the best player of 2014 so far?

Stanislas Wawrinka

He may have been around for a long time – more than a decade, in fact – but it’s 2014 that’s proving to be Stanislas Wawrinka’s breakthrough year.

There weren’t any overt splashes at the start of the year, with expectations around the tennis world still mainly revolving around the proverbial ‘Big Four’ even though Roger Federer, one of the names making up the quartet, had slipped to the sixth spot in the rankings. But there has been a kind of understated eloquence that has set Wawrinka apart from the moment the tennis action started this season, even as he has been brought into the decidedly small fold of active Slam winners.

A reason for the unexpectedness of Wawrinka’s ascension to prominence can be put down to the fact that he’d never been one of those players who make random blink-and-miss appearances in the year; causing an upset or two and then disappearing from the circuit was not quite his thing. Instead, he was always a consistent, wily and difficult opponent to play against, despite his inability to maintain his confidence for a sustained period of time.

This year however, neither his game nor mental attitude have been marred by any kind of self-doubt. No matter the opponent or the tournament, he has come out all guns blazing, usually with positive results. Though his form looked to have slumped mildly at Indian Wells and Miami, his performance at the year’s first claycourt Masters has put to rest any doubts about him struggling to maintain his form and ranking through the course of the season.

Wawrinka’s win at Monte Carlo may have fittingly answered the last lingering naysayers who continued to spell doom and gloom for the Swiss. But more than casting aside the quelling talk of the sceptics, his win has swung the momentum in his direction on a surface where Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were touted to be the overwhelming favourites.

At any other point of time in the course of the season, a slight possibility of someone else apart from these two guys to emerge as the frontrunner could have been entertained. But on clay, taking into account these two players’ dominance in the past few years – a decade, no less, in case of Rafa – Wawrinka’s breakthrough was quite astonishing.

The manner in which Wawrinka has managed to uplift his game, giving his season a resurgence with an important win right at the start of the clay swing makes one thing clear: Stan is for real. Moreover, given Rafa’s surprisingly tentative play on his preferred surface and Djokovic’s newly cropped up wrist injury, Wawrinka might well do more damage at Madrid and Rome, the other two important tune-up events before the French Open.

Wawrinka’s game is undoubtedly well-suited to the surface. His scintillating forehand and his exquisite backhand, impressive as they are on the hardcourts, get even more purchase on clay as he has more time to wind up for his shots. While his abilities on dirt weren’t particularly striking in the past, overshadowed as they were by his relative lack of claycourt titles, he has always looked comfortable on the surface, and that could be the key in the lead-up to Roland Garros.

Perhaps as yet another effect of his positive synergy with coach Magnus Norman, it was in 2013 that Wawrinka’s explosiveness on clay was reinforced when he reached the final of the Madrid Masters, where he lost to Rafa. This was Wawrinka’s second Masters final after his run at the 2008 Rome Masters, where he lost to Novak Djokovic. But while he lost his way following that incredible run in Rome, this time round, the solidity of Magnus Norman was emphasised when he continued his good run of form into the French Open, making it to the quarterfinals.

In the ensuing months thereafter, the Swede’s contributions and subtle fine-tuning of Wawrinka’s game continued to make an impact.

Coaches however can only provide so much motivation and impetus to a player’s game and mindset. The onus of building on the coach’s inputs and developing oneself as a better player, who not just contests marathon matches but also ends up winning them, is all on the player.

Much of Wawrinka’s success can be attributed to exactly that. He may have always had the talent, but what separates the Wawrinka of the past and the Wawrinka of the present – and possibly the future – is drive. There is no more casual acceptance that he can hang with the very best players; now, he also has the self-belief that he can win against them.

And that’s something which he’s managed to do more than once this year (he’s 6-0 against top 10 players in 2014), and something that he looks certain to build upon as the season progresses further. He’s won three titles already this year, including the biggie in Melbourne, and is currently in the middle of another hot run of form. Has he done enough in the first 1/3rd of the season to be called the best player of the year so far?

To my mind, he has.