TENNIS ROLAND GARROS – There was a lot of talk regarding this year’s French Open championships about who has a legitimate chance to dethrone Rafael Nadal. 2014 Australian Open champ, Stanislas Wawrinka was mentioned, but the Swiss lost in the first round to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4 5-7 6-2 6-0. Cordell Hackshaw
Interviews, Results, OOP, Draws from the Roland Garros
There was a lot of talk regarding this year’s French Open championships particularly about who has a legitimate chance to dethrone Rafael Nadal. 2014 Australian Open champ, Switzerland Stanislas Wawrinka’s name was mentioned. He after all had done the near impossible of defeating Nadal in a major final, something that was only done by two other players; Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Many had predictions but it is almost with certainty that none figured that world’s number 3 would be casually ousted from these championships in the first round. Not even the most clear of clairvoyants could have foretold of such a “magnormous” upset. Nonetheless, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain seemed hell bent emerging victorious from this match up and did so in spectacular fashion 6-4 5-7 6-2 6-0. Wawrinka stated “[T]he match wasn’t good at all. I was trying to find my game, trying to find to be aggressive, trying to find anything, and I didn’t.”
The match started out pretty much exactly as most people would have expected; Wawrinka was up an early break 3-1. However, the script got flipped. Wawrinka was unable to consolidate the break. Soon, the Spaniard reeled off four straight games to force the Swiss number one player to serve to stay in the set down 3-5. Wawrinka held serve and now it was the Spaniard’s turn to step up to the service line at 5-4. Wawrinka breaking serve at this point looked almost inevitable as he got to 0-30 but then he continued to be erratic dumping shots into the net, long and wide. This gave Garcia-Lopez a set point and he did not waste this precious point, 6-4 in 36 minutes.
In the 2nd set, again Wawrinka took the early advantage and raced out to a 4-1 lead but then soon lost the plot and things were soon even at 5-5. Wawrinka held serve for 6-5 and then showed himself to be a prodigious player as he broke Garcia-Lopez at love and took the 2nd set 7-5. Many would have predicted that this was the spark that Wawrinka needed that would lift him to take this match in 4 sets. That spark never turned into a flame as Wawrinka wilted away. Garcia-Lopez broke the Swiss early which Wawrinka later described as “a stupid break to begin the third set.” Garcia-Lopez was now breaking Wawrinka at will and was inclined to so again in the 7th game to lead 5-2. Garcia-Lopez was determined now more than ever to see this match through for a win. He closed out the set 6-2. Errors were spilling from Wawrinka’s racquet in particular on his forehand wing. He just never got any rhythm on his shots nor seemed inclined to motivate himself and come up with a new game plan. He remained passive throughout the last 2 sets of the match and in the 4th set, he all but capitulated to the Spaniard as he was bagelled; 6-4 5-7 6-2 6-0 Garcia-Lopez.
The strange thing about the match-up was that Wawrinka looked like the lower ranked player on court and Garcia-Lopez the top ranker. This was clearly illustrated by the stats from the match. Wawrinka was only able to put in 57% of his first serves winning a measly 54% of those points and 55% on his 2nd serve. He had 37 winners and a staggering 62 errors. Garcia-Lopez won 75% of his 1st serve points and 51% of his 2nd serves but he had 23 winners to 28 errors. The final set was almost a golden set as Wawrinka won only 6 points on his serve and 3 return points. There was absolutely no commitment from the Swiss on court as Garcia-Lopez remained positively animated throughout as though he was the overwhelming favourite. Wawrinka said it best about his own performance in the match, “I think I was completely flat. I was not really relaxed with my game. I wasn’t aggressive. I was playing some bad rallies, I was thinking too much my backhand from the middle. Everything was terrible.” Nonetheless, with Wawrinka’s departure, there are many other players in this quarter of the draw that are more than capable of rising to the occasion of making the French Open semifinal.
