Swiss third seed Stan Wawrinka beat top seed Novak Djokovic in four sets today to claim the US Open men’s singles title, beating the Serb 6-7, 6-4, 7-5, 6-3. The win marks Wawrinka’s maiden title at the US Open, and his third Grand Slam.
The Swiss ace has now won every single Grand Slam final he has played in, winning from a set down in the last two His first Grand Slam title came at the 2014 Australian Open, with Wawrinka losing a set to Rafael Nadal. He followed that up with a win at the French Open last year, a set down to Djokovic and eventually preventing the Serb from a career Grand Slam in 2015.
Today, Wawrinka put on a stellar display of both baseline and serve-and-volley play to beat Djokovic. Having trained his forehand more after joining forces with Swedish ace Magnus Norman, the Swiss looked in exquisite form as he maintained his stamina over the long-drawn-out match that lasted a little over 4 hours on Arthur Ashe tonight.
Djokovic started off well against the Swiss, who put up a solid fight in the first set from two games down to take the Serb to a first-set tiebreak. Although he only scored a single point in the tiebreak, Wawrinka’s rally with Djokovic to score that point lasted a staggering 19 shots.
From then on, the Swiss capitalized strongly on break points, with a 60% conversion rate which served key to his win today.
Usually an aggressive baseliner, Wawrinka tonight used net-play to good effect as he sent Djokovic reaching for shots and having to dig deep to combat him, with the Serb putting on an athletic display in the earlier stages of the match.
Perhaps forcing the Serb to run around served key in Wawrinka’s win as well; Djokovic looked fatigued by set 4, and called for not one but two medical timeouts as he struggled to move across court. It appeared at one point that the No. 1 was simply trying to close out the match and had all but given up on the game, although he did attempt to put on a spirited display till the end.
This marks a 100% success rate for Stan Wawrinka at Grand Slam finals – staggering considering he has only won one Masters tilte – at the 2014 Monte Carlo-Rolex Masters.
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