Roland Garros 2017 diary: Is Stan Wawrinka settling in for his annual Slam charge?
Day 5 at the 2017 French Open was the second odd-numbered day dedicated solely to the lighter half of the men's draw. With Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Dominic Thiem – the three top contenders for the title – all enjoying their rest day, I thought the crowd would be considerably thinner than usual.
But I hadn't reckoned for Roland Garros spectators’ love for tennis. It actually seemed like there were even more people in attendance today than yesterday; there were long, serpentine queues outside practically every court. I even overheard a kid, who was standing outside Court 8 and looking evidently frustrated at not being able to get into his court of choice, scream out, “Mom, let's just go to ANY court; this one looks fine!”
I didn't wait to see if the mother paid any heed to his exhortation. But if she had, she would have got to see the women's doubles match between Olaru-Savchuk and Babos-Hlavackova, who were battling it out on Court 8 at that moment. Anything for the love of tennis, right?
On that note, a couple of highlights from my time watching the proceedings today:
Stan Wawrinka means business
A dialed-in Stan Wawrinka is a sight to behold
I arrived a little late to the stadium today, and was worried I'd miss the marquee clash on Philipp-Chatrier – Stan Wawrinka against Alexandr Dolgopolov. But the moment I settled into my seat, I was greeted by the sight of Wawrinka smoking a couple of picture-perfect down-the-line backhands, the second of which went for a winner and helped him pocket the first set. Talk about perfect timing.
The Wawrinka backhand never gets old, and I think I've written more about this one shot than I have about any other shot in tennis. He kept unfurling rockets off that wing today, and he kept drawing gasps from the crowd. Somehow, the slow clay of Paris makes the shot look even more impressive; since he gets more time to unwind, he ends up hitting it with greater power than usual. It's no wonder his 2015 French Open win is widely his considered his best – and most spectacular – Slam performance yet.
Once I had got past the spectacle of his game though, I was struck by how seriously he seemed to be taking this match. Dolgopolov is a fine player, but I don't think anyone saw him as a realistic threat to Wawrinka here. And yet, Wawrinka celebrated each point with a passion, and never went off the boil at any point in the match. He dominated the proceedings a lot more than the scoreline suggests; he was always in control, and clearly the superior defender.
Wawrinka is not often the more stable player in any match that he plays. But today Dolgopolov, despite hitting some incredible shots on occasion, looked like a thoroughly excitable cannonball in comparison to the Swiss.
As you probably know, Wawrinka gets that look in his eye at one Major every year. Most people assumed he'd get it at Wimbledon this year, so that there could be a neat symmetry to his methodical madness. But can it be that he's decided Roland Garros is going to be that Slam in 2017 instead?
We’ll get to know over the course of the next week and a half. But if I was a player in the men’s draw, I’d be keeping a wary eye on Wawrinka, and praying that his level drops at some point in the tournament.
Andy Murray whines a lot, but that may not be totally unjustified
Andy Murray wasn’t a happy camper today; but is he ever?
When I looked at Andy Murray’s draw, I thought he could potentially lose to every single opponent he was going to face. And Martin Klizan looked one of the most dangerous of those opponents; he’s lefty, he’s powerful, and he knows his way around clay.
So I wasn’t altogether surprised when Murray went down an early break and eventually lost the first set, or when he went down a break in the fourth and looked ready to be blown off the court by Klizan’s wicked angles. What I was surprised by was the number of times Murray whined in the direction of his player box; he didn’t seem capable of stopping himself from complaining about something or the other.
I knew he’s known as Grumpy Andy for a reason, but as I sat just a few feet away from him on Suzanne Lenglen, I realized that he grumbles after every single point he loses. Is it even humanly possible for anyone to be that much of a sourpuss?
If you look closely at the way Murray constructs his points though, you will probably find his tetchiness to be a little understandable. It hasn’t been repeated enough how cerebral a player the Scot really is. Every shot in every rally seems to have a plan behind it – even if that plan may look thoroughly ill-advised.
Murray’s direction changes are usually more unexpected than other players, and his variations in depth are never-ending. Even when he bunts the ball back with little pace – and he was forced to do that a number of times by Klizan’s fierce groundstrokes – he seems to be trying to get his opponent into a particular position that can eventually win him the point.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but such a strategy is almost as fraught with risk as an all-out-attack approach. It may not look like Murray is taking a lot of chances, and he is certainly guilty of being too passive at times, but the margins of error are pretty fine for him too. Since he hits so many off-pace shots, he needs to be surgically precise with them; if he misplaces any by even half a foot, he becomes a sitting duck, inviting the opponent to blast a winner.
And he knows it too. He often yells and rants when his opponent hits a clean winner past him, which looks laughably unsportsmanlike to the casual eye. But as he goes about putting together each rally in the match, you can see what he’s trying to do. The drop shot + lob combination is the obvious cat-and-mouse strategy that he employs; what is not so obvious is that he is always trying to be either a cat or a mouse, manoeuvring the ball and luring the opponent into a false sense of security before stealing away the prize while no one’s looking.
Surely if you’re going to think that much during a match, you’re not going to be able to keep a lid on your emotions. And it’s not even like this is a recipe guaranteed to yield results; we have seen too many power players bombing their way to success to be convinced that Murray’s way is the right way. A journeyman player like Klizan almost knocked out the World No. 1 today, and a barely-seeded Juan Martin del Potro is almost certainly going to give the Scot as much trouble, if not more, in the third round.
But if you think about it, is it really surprising to see Murray falter so often, and whine every time he does? He has chosen a specific way to play tennis, and he knows the cost at which it comes. If he’s off with his length or timing by the smalllest of margins, he’s going to be vulnerable to every power hitter out there.
It’s always a terrible feeling when you fail at something. But when you know exactly why you failed and what you should have done to avoid it, the pain becomes even worse. It’s no wonder Murray smiles so rarely, and frowns so often.