IMAGE: Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka in motion. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Three-time Grand Slam champion Stanislas Wawrinka nonetheless has the starvation to be constantly aggressive towards high gamers and desires to make a final push for success before the top of his career, his coach Daniel Vallverdu has instructed Reuters.
Wawrinka’s final ATP title got here in 2017 before the previous world quantity three underwent knee surgical procedure. The damage continued to hassle him by way of 2018 throughout which his rating fell to 263.
The 35-year-old Swiss has since been on an increase, making two finals in 2019, and continued the nice work initially of 2020 by reaching the Australian Open quarter-finals.
The shutdown attributable to COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty within the calendar proved “difficult” however Wawrinka managed to make a powerful finish to the 12 months by reaching the quarter-finals in St Petersburg and the ATP Masters in Paris.
“Once the tour had a bit of bit extra of a construction and we knew that tournaments had been going to occur he discovered his motivation once more and we had been capable of practise with a aim and with goals in entrance of us,” Vallverdu mentioned in an interview.
“The previous couple of occasions of the 12 months had been very encouraging. He’s now able to undergo this coaching block in December, and hopefully have a full season subsequent 12 months.”
Vallverdu mentioned Wawrinka has been clear in his message to his group about his objectives for 2021.
“The starvation is certainly there and he needs to make a final push now on the finish of his career,” Vallverdu mentioned by cellphone from Monaco. “The objectives are usually not simply to win tournaments, however to really feel like he is aggressive at a excessive stage.
“It could be unrealistic to say that the objectives are to win a Grand Slam. Whether it could occur or not? Of course it could.
“But together with his potential and expertise he feels if he’s aggressive towards the fellows which can be on the high, he is all the time going to have an opportunity to attain huge outcomes.”
Vallverdu, 34, began working with the Swiss in the course of final 12 months and mentioned Wawrinka was conscious he would wish to place in additional work than ordinary within the face of stiff competitors within the males’s sport.
Outside the standard problem from the Big Three of Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, Vallverdu feels a number of youthful gamers have come of age within the final two years.
Dominic Thiem’s U.S. Open triumph in 2020 was the primary Grand Slam triumph exterior the triumvirate since Wawrinka received in New York in 2016.
Vallverdu, who has coached a few of the greatest names on the ATP Tour together with Andy Murray and Juan Martin del Potro, mentioned the way forward for males’s tennis is in good arms.
“It’s good to see that there’s not just one or two guys that possibly will take over tennis in a couple of years however there may be greater than a handful or much more than 10 guys which have the chance and stage to develop into champions,” he mentioned.
“Few of them play very in a different way to at least one one other and there may be good selection coming within the subsequent few years.”
