Stan Wawrinka may look a little different now that he is safely installed in the third round of The Championships (gone are the checked beach shorts he wore with pride and a smile during the clay-court season and in their place are the pristine, white, tailored togs more suited to the show courts of the All England Club) but there is a familiar air about the French Open champion.
Wawrinka eased his way past Victor Estrella Burgos, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, on Day Three and, as the sweat dripped from his face, he gave off that confident aura of a man who knows how to win one of these big events. He was playing well enough, he was getting the job done and he knew that there was plenty more to come.
I never played him [before]. I didn't know what to expect
That is how you get through two weeks of a major championship. He knows – he has won two of them in the past two years.
“For me, it is important to get through,” he said. “There are lots of things I want to work on, improve, but my game in practice is really good. It was a great match and I’m glad I got through in three sets.”
The two men had never met before, not on the match court or the practice court. But, then again, Estrella Burgos has not always been on the tour. He turned professional back in 2002 but soon ditched the life of travel and tournaments to go back home to the Dominican Republic and work as a coach. He came back to the circuit in 2006 but it was only last year that he made his Wimbledon debut. Now 34, he is something of a late bloomer and his win over Benjamin Becker in the first round was only the second win of his career on grass (the first came last year at Queen’s Club).
Estrella Burgos is not the tallest man on the tour but what he lacks in height he makes up for in speed around the court. That, coupled with the wisdom of age – he has nothing to lose, everything to gain and he can let the younger men worry about their reputations – and he was doing his best to give Wawrinka the run around. He almost managed it, too, in the third set, trying to push the Swiss as far as he could but Stan the Man was not to be pushed. Double Grand Slam champions don’t take kindly to that sort of thing.
“He’s a good player,” Wawrinka agreed, “a tough player. I never played him, I never practised with him; I didn’t know what to expect.”
He will know what to expect in the next round, though. He faces Fernando Verdasco, who took five sets to get the better of Dominic Thiem. They have played three times and Verdasco leads 2-1. But their last outing was back in 2012 on clay in Acapulco (Verdasco won that one in straight sets) but those were the days before Wawrinka had started winning the biggest titles of all. The Swiss knows he will have his work cut out on Friday but he also must take comfort from the fact that if he can beat Novak Djokovic on clay to win the French Open, he stands a reasonable chance against the world No.43 from Spain.
“He’s a really dangerous player,” Wawrinka said of Verdasco. “He’s got the lefty serve, his forehand is amazing. It’s going to be a good challenge.”
Verdasco must be thinking much the same: Wawrinka has got that amazing backhand and he knows how to win Grand Slam titles. It is going to be challenge.
