Tennis Prose




May/23

10

At 38 Wawrinka Keeps On Trucking

Champions like Becker, McEnroe, Borg, Chang, Rios, Hewitt, Sampras, Agassi, Courier, Muster, Goran, Rafter were all finished by age 38 but Stan Wawrinka isn’t showing any signs of wrapping up his ATP career any time soon.

Today Wawrinka proved again he is still a force on the ATP World Tour as he dismissed Ilya Ivashka 62 64 in the first round of Rome 1000 Internazionali BNL d’Italia. Wawrinka had lost the previous match with the Russian in 2018 in Marseille.

The winner of three Grand Slam titles is ranked 84 now but he hasn’t forgotten how to win ATP matches. So far this year his match record is 12-9.

Wawrinka is the oldest man in the Rome draw. It’s his 119th appearance in an ATP 1000 tournament. Wawrinka turned pro in 2002.

Wawrinka told the ATP web site why he still loves to compete: “I enjoy what I’m doing. I’m passionate about it. The emotion that I get from the fans, from the people in each tournament, from the support that I can get in matches, is always going to be special. I want to enjoy that as much as I can because the day that I will stop there will be no return…I love the work, I love the process to get there too, so I’m lucky and happy that I enjoy what I have to do to be at my top level and also when I play matches, it doesn’t matter which court, which big stadium, small stadium. For me I always enjoy it and I always appreciate the sport.”

Wawrinka still believes he can slay the mightiest dragons of the ATP: “The day you stop your sport there is no return. There is no way back, because it’s impossible to stop after 30 and then try to come back. It’s almost impossible, it’s so tough. And then you have to see [what is] also tough [is] I’m getting really old for my sport. [But] I’m still really young in my life. After tennis, there are still so many years to do other stuff, so all together, I want to enjoy as much as possible. It’s a privilege to be a tennis player. It’s a privilege to be playing at that level, to be playing in the biggest tournaments in the world. As long as I’m feeling competitive with what I’m doing, that I feel like I can beat the top players, I’m enjoying that.”

Stan is not considering quitting any time soon: “As long as I feel competitive, I want to keep going… I feel competitive. I know that when I enter the court, most of the time I can beat my opponent. I’m not young anymore. Things are a bit more difficult also to keep going back-to-back-to-back days, to push through a tournament. But I still believe that I can win tournaments. I don’t know which level of tournament, but of course I want to win a trophy before stopping.”

Wawrinka has won over 550 ATP matches and 16 ATP singles titles but he’s hungry for more: “I know what abilities I have. I know all the work that’s put in that I have to do to be at that level. Of course it’s great and I’m happy with it, but I want to keep pushing for more.”

Wawrinka will play Grigor Dimitrov in the second round of Rome. Stan leads the head to head series vs. the 31 year old ranked 33, 7-5 however Dimitrov won their last match in 2020 Acapulco QF 64 64. Stan won their last duel on clay at 2019 Roland Garros third round 76 76 76.

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