'I couldn't even train': Tired and almost broken, veteran Wawrinka admits season struggles
Wawrinka has undergone multiple surgeries on his left knee and left leg in recent years. Although many tennis players his age are making a stop to their professional careers, he has decided to start almost from scratch again and claw his way back into the limelight.
Last spring, he returned to the courts after a one-year hiatus, and most of his starts ended in failure for him. He crashed out in the first round at 11 of 15 tournaments and things were looking bleak for his return to the wider world.
Before the start of the 2023 season, he was outside the top 100 of the ATP rankings and was about to celebrate his 38th birthday. But he persevered and continued to bring joy to tennis fans.
Above all, he has started to be dangerous again for the top 50 players, with whom he has a 16-11 record this year. He has collected wins against Richard Gasquet (36), Andy Murray (36), Alexander Bublik (26), Miomir Kecmanovic (24), Brandon Nakashima (22) and Cameron Norrie (28), and has also defeated two top 10 players, Holger Rune (20) and Frances Tiafoe (25).
He ended a four-year wait for a final on the clay at Umag this summer, reached the third round of the Grand Slam twice and won the match at the US Open, the oldest player to do so since 1992. Even five months shy of his 39th birthday, he remains in the top 50 and is the oldest member of the top 400.
He misses Federer
But at the end of tough seasons, much younger players run out of breath and veteran Wawrinka is no exception. He lost four out of five matches after the US Open and admitted in an interview with SRF Sport that he hasn't even had the energy to train lately.
"In the last few weeks I feel very tired, almost broken. After the Astana tournament it happened two or three times that I wanted to train but I couldn't because I was too tired," said the three-time Grand Slam champion, who last week in Stockholm was no match for Tomas Machac (23) and this week he couldn't even fix his appetite at his home tournament in Basel, where he was knocked out in the first round by Alexander Shevchenko (22).
"I feel I need to repay all the effort I put into my comeback from injury. I wanted to get back to a certain level and I had to push myself a lot," said Wawrinka, who won Olympic doubles gold with Roger Federer in 2008.
"It was a huge opportunity for me to train with such a champion and become his friend. I miss him on the circuit now... The Olympic gold with Roger is one of the most memorable moments of my career," recalled the Lausanne native.
He was supposed to finish his season in two weeks at the ATP 250 indoor event in Mettet, where he took on Daniil Medvedev a year ago but had to forfeit the final due to health problems.