“You can’t compare Rafael Nadal to others” Stan Wawrinka believes the Spaniard’s win at the Australian Open ‘brought people back to tennis’


“You can’t compare Rafael Nadal to others” Stan Wawrinka believes the Spaniard’s win at the Australian Open ‘brought people back to tennis’

Rafael Nadal and Stan Wawrinka

Rafael Nadal‘s historic win at the 2022 Australian Open will be talked about for a long time given the magnitude of the win and what all happened at the tournament and for Nadal personally in the build-up to the finals. Returning to Grand Slam action for the first time since June 2021 and having played just 5 matches of which 3 were played in 2022, it was a massive win for Nadal fighting against the odds.

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Playing against the reigning Grand Slam champion Daniil Medvedev in the finals, Nadal found himself 2-sets down going into the third and had almost lost the third set as well with Medvedev having 3 breakpoints at an important juncture of the match. Nadal went on to save those breakpoints and after a battle of 5 hours and 24 minutes, he emerged as the champion in what was the second-longest Grand Slam finals and became the first man to win 21 Grand Slam titles.

Speaking about the win, Nadal’s old rival and 3-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka expressed his opinions on the win during the latest ‘Air Open’ podcast episode he did with L’Equipe.

“Whatever happens, you can’t compare Nadal to other tennis players. Throughout his career, he has returned each time from more or less serious injuries, from three or four or six months of absence. It’s almost in his routine that he does it again at this age and at this level, it’s exceptional but like his whole career. Sometimes it feels like tennis is written when you see this kind of story. 

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“I was talking about it before the Australian Open with my coach and he said to me: ‘You’ll see, Nadal is going to win’ because he has doubts but he’s a champion. Of course, if we judge that in the short‐term, what he did last year with his injury, and removing the name Nadal, we’re all going to say it’s not possible. But fortunately, Nadal won the Australian Open because it brought people back to tennis in a concrete way,” said Wawrinka heaping praise on Nadal for his record-breaking win.

Stan Wawrinka’s record against Rafael Nadal

Stan Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal
Stan Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal

Nadal and Wawrinka met for the first time in the 3rd round of the 2007 Australian Open where Nadal won the match in straight-sets. He then proceeded to win 12 consecutive matches against Wawrinka and did not lose a single set during the 6-year period when he got the better of the Swiss player. The 12 wins also included the meeting between them in the finals of the 2007 Stuttgart Open and the 2013 Madrid Masters finals.

Wawrinka’s first win against Nadal came in the finals of the 2014 Australian Open winning his first Grand Slam title by defeating Nadal in 4-sets. In the next 3 meetings that all took place in the quarter-finals of various tournaments between the two after meeting in Australia, Stan managed two more wins with his final win coming at the 2015 Paris Masters.

Since then Nadal has picked up 6 more straight-set wins including a win in the 2017 French Open finals. The pair last met in the 3rd round of the 2019 Paris Masters where Nadal won to take a 19-3 lead over Wawrinka who has since then struggled massively with injuries and fitness issues being currently ranked outside the Top-150 of the ATP rankings.

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