Australian Open – 4th round matches: Djokovic vs Wawrinka

Have a nice Sunday everyone! The 4^th round matches are completed in Day 7 of Australian Open, and the match-ups started in the quarter finals. The first match of the evening session was Radwanska (Pol) vs. Ivanovic (Srb). My favorite was Agnieszka Radwanska also in the beginning of the match. Aga highly improved herself in the last two years. She is a player with clean, various shots, moves quickly, and senses where the ball would go, and she is also hard-working. These characteristics brought her to an important position in women’s tennis.

The match was not surprising to me as it progressed as I expected. Just in her first service, Aga broke her opponent’s serve, and dominated the match right away. Radwanska specifically keeps the rallies long to force the players like Ivanovic, who hardly maintains stability, to make errors. She did the same thing here in that; while Aga played with only 4 unforced errors throughout the match, this ratio was 21-2 against her opponent. That is to say, considering these figures, we can understand why these matches last such a short time. Ivanovic made solid shots at times, but she could not find a solution to the low balls from Aga. Her serves were not that strong, and made double faults at very wrong points. When we look at both players, I may say that Radwanska is far superior to her opponent in terms of ranking. Moreover, Radwanska made a very good start to season, and won 13 matches she played this year. She easily won the match, 6-2, 6-4. Her opponent in quarter finals is Li Na. My favorite will again be Aga in this match. Li Na is a good player, but just like Schiavone, after she won a Grand Slam, her performance seriously declined. Stosur experienced the same decline, and these players could not still pull themselves together. I’m not very hopeful about Li Na. Besides, I think Radwanska is ready and deserves to win a Grand Slam. Let’s see what happens… As for the other matches of the quarter final, Maria Sharapova won an easy match to move on the quarter final. The main draw will be completely shaped after the matches tomorrow.

From the men’s front, the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who is the world’s number 1 player and one of my favorite players, and Stanislas Wawrinka, the second best player of Switzerland after Federer, will meet in the evening session. Now naturally, my favorite is Djokovic. It is not simply because he is the number one, but also because I have great faith in him. He is a gentleman, plays a very high level of tennis, and respects both his opponent and the game itself. Frankly, like many other people, I was not very interested in Wawrinka. We all have been so fascinated by Federer that we neglected this player. But in fact, he is also a very solid player. During an interview made with Djokovic he stated the same thing. He said “it will not be easy for me. Wawrinka is a solid player with good serves, and can play very well on any court”.

Djokovic could not start the match as he desired. Normally, he is a player to win his service game very easily. However, Wawrinka forces him; he made a good start by breaking the serve in the third game. If this was another player, I would be stressed out. But when it comes to Novak I’m calm, since he is a strong and self-confident player who is able to turn around the match from a set score of 2-0, and surely will gather himself up. Djokovic has not been beaten by Wawrinka since 2007, and I don’t think he will be today either. But he did make a very awful start in the match. Wawrinka shoots brilliant single-handed backhands. Novak could not find a solution for this. He lost the first set, which lasted 25 minutes, 6-1. I really cannot remember the last time he gave a set to anyone 6-1.

Djokovic started the second set by breaking the serve, and Wawrinka responded. The issue here is not that Djokovic makes errors, but Wawrinka plays great tennis indeed, and makes special shots. He makes milimetric backhand and forehand shots. He shows what a good player he is, so I respect him a lot. He also serves very well, but in the first set, his opponent Djokovic’s service percentage was 65%, which is quite a low ratio. This explains why he struggles to keep his own serves; in this game, he has a low percentage of serves that go in, and his opponent manages to return them. Wawrinka has made extreme efforts so far. Novak is very athletic and is used to long matches. I think if he finds a little rhythm, he can pull this match out. The score is 2-1 in the second set, and it is Djokovic’s turn to serve.  But today Novak does not play like himself today. He cannot catch up with his opponent’s balls and even if he does, he makes errors. Wawrinka got the chance to break serve for the fifth time. He first broke the serve, and now he hits consecutive aces in his own service game, and brought the second set to 4-1 in just 26 minutes. The crowd got ecstatic. Wawrinka plays superbly, and I wonder how Novak can gather himself up. Wawrinka made variety of shots very skillfully. He can very easily change the direction and speed of the ball in the game. Now, it is 5-2 in the second set. Well, there is no sign of gathering on Djokovic’s part so far. I’m very curious, let’s see…

After 5-3, Djokovic started to compose himself. He broke his opponent’s serve and made the score 5-5. I realized once again why Djokovic is the number 1. To begin with, he never loses his self-belief and never gives up. When he started to pick himself up a little, his opponent started to stumble, since his physical strength is much higher than his opponents. Wawrinka played superbly, but this lasted for 2 sets. On the other hand, Djokovic gave the signals that he has just warmed and just started the match. So, I don’t think he will let this match go. With this speed, he took the second set 7-5, and now the set score is 1-1. I think we will see a different Djokovic in the third set.

In the third set, the serves are broken mutually. Both players make errors and take advantage of each other’s errors, but have not defeated each other yet. We are heading towards the breaking point of the set. While it was 4-4, Djokovic took advantage of his first opportunity, and took the third set 6-4.

We all will see if Wawrinka gets demoralized and disengaged from the match in the fourth set. He kept his discipline so far, played very well, and now I have even more sympathy towards him. In the beginning of the set, Wawrinka failed to take advantage of his opportunity to break the serve. Now the score is 3-3. Both players have a high ratio of unforced errors. While Djokovic made 43 unforced errors, his opponent made 33 so far. This ratio is quite high since they continually make risky shots to be on the lookout for each other’s errors. Stanislas Wawrinka neither got intimidated by his opponent, nor got disengaged from the game. He hits great serves and shoots perfect forehands. He has a great single-handed backhand and earned many points with very solid passing shots. He never let the match go, so he did win the spectators’ hearts. He leads 4-3 in the fourth set. Actually he is such a talented and precious player. Today he plays a very high level of tennis. It is such a big challenge to be a tennis player of the same country at the same time with Federer who is one of the all-time greatest legends of tennis history. However, with his great play against the world’s number one, he proved himself well to everyone here today. It is 6-5 in the fourth set. Wawrinka took a medical break; I hope he doesn’t have a serious condition. I think that he probably burned himself out while trying to return the difficult shots by Djokovic who has a high physical strength. Besides, one of the most important reasons for Djoker to be the world’s number 1 is his high physical strength, an important characteristic that distinguishes him from the others. The set extended to a tie-break and it is 6-6. Djokovic plays with 130 winners and Wawrinka with 128 winners. Both players are very close to each other. In tie-break, Wawrinka leads 5-3. This is a match to watch breathlessly. Djokovic made a backhand error, and Stanislas Wawrinka has the chance for a set point 3 times. But Djoker served well and made good defense to make the score 6-5. Now it is Wawrinka’s turn. After an unbelievable rally, Wawrinka won the fourth set with an extraordinary point. Now we are heading towards the final set.

In the final set, Wawrinka seized the chance to break his opponent’s serve. I think wining this match will change his perspective both to himself and tennis. The reason is that his physical strength is very high. If he beats the world’s number one in the fifth set who is used to win 5-set matches, I believe Wawrinka will move on to another phase. In fact, I think from this point, winning and losing is simply on paper. A really high level of tennis is played on court. The final set is very close. In terms of the tennis played and excitement of the environment, it seems as if it is not a fourth round match, but a final match.  The players mutually kept their serves. The score is 6-6 again, but there is no tie-break in the final set. The game will continue until a player has a 2-point lead against the other player. I saw it very clearly in this match and especially in this final set that Wawrinka does have nerves of steel and is a mentally strong player. Djokovic is very resilient anyway, but his opponent also deserved all the credits. In the 22^nd game of the final set that continued for 104 minutes, Djokovic got the chance of the match point three times. At the end of a 20-shot rally, he made the score 12-10. He beat Wawrinka in this 5-hour match with the score of 1-6,7-5, 6-4, 7-6,12-10, and moved on to the quarter final. His opponent will be Tomas Berdych in the quarter final. It was a very nice but a long match. On day 8, the matches will continue at midnight. Whenever I watch these matches, I will continue sharing them. Have a happy Sunday, everyone…