A resurgent Stan Wawrinka has muscled his way into the Australian Open quarterfinals with a statement win over No.4 seed Daniil Medvedev on Monday.
On the brink of defeat, the three-time Grand Slam champion raised his game in the fourth and fifth sets to record a popular 6-2 2-6 4-6 7-6(2) 6-2 triumph at Margaret Court Arena.
The Swiss star will meet the winner of the fourth-round match between Alexander Zverev and Andrey Rublev, scheduled for later on Monday evening.
“I'm finding solutions,” said Wawrinka, who has now reached the quarterfinal stage at three of his last four Grand Slam events.
"Really tough to play against Daniil. I was not playing with confidence in the second and third sets, and I had to fight against myself to play a little bit against my game. But I knew it was coming. I had to fight, to stay with it, stay positive and, yeah, I'm happy with it.”
It marked the second five-set victory for Wawrinka at Australian Open 2020, after he beat Italian Andreas Seppi at the same arena four days earlier.
And it came against an incredibly in-form opponent; Medvedev had won seven of his eight matches in 2020, and came into the contest having won 37 of his last 45 outings since Wimbledon last year.
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Wawrinka played with powerful purpose early in the match, uncorking his renowned one-handed backhand down the line for a winner before breaking Medvedev’s serve on the next point to break for a 3-1 lead.
When he charged the net to put away a volley to lead 3-1, 40-0, he had already smacked 10 winners to Medvedev’s three.
Yet after Wawrinka pocketed a one-sided first set, Medvedev began to weave his web.
The Russian is often referred to as a backboard, and in set two he completely flipped the momentum, forcing the Swiss to repeat quality patterns of play over an extended period – always a difficult task. Medvedev committed just two unforced errors to Wawrinka’s 13 while still managing to produce more winners than the Swiss.
Wawrinka’s bludgeoning groundstrokes can be too much for almost any player to handle when the former world No.3 is connecting sweetly with the ball. Even a player as successful and as nimble as Novak Djokovic has found the velocity of Wawrinka’s shotmaking overwhelming – on four different occasions at Grand Slam tournaments.
Yet Medvedev did not seem troubled by those same strokes, as he won the third set to put himself in a commanding position.
Granted, this may not have been peak Wawrinka, the player who won three major titles in a productive period from 2014 to 2016.
However, since this time last year, when ranked 59th, Wawrinka has hauled himself back to world No.15 after posting an impressive 2019 season highlighted by trips to the finals in Rotterdam and Antwerp as well as quarterfinal finishes at the French and US Opens.
That quarterfinal loss in New York came to Medvedev, who had also won their only other previous meeting at Wimbledon in 2017.
Many people watching the fourth set unfold would have assumed the young Russian would extend his unbeaten win-loss record against the Swiss.
Yet after barely missing a ball for three sets, Medvedev came undone in the ensuing tiebreak, with two errors gifting the Swiss a 3-0 lead. Emboldened, Wawrinka played a winning backhand and delicate drop volley to build a 5-2 advantage, and snatched the set when Medvedev netted a backhand.
Wawrinka now had the momentum, and the crowd behind him, and broke in the very first game of the final set. And it was an advantage he would not relinquish.
He came out on top of several muscular, physical rallies as the set played out, swatting an overhead winner to extend his lead to 4-2.
He did not drop another game.
"This was another amazing match with an amazing atmosphere,” Wawrinka said, after advancing to his fifth Australian Open quarterfinal.
"It's amazing to keep playing here, at that level. I'm pretty happy with what I've done on the court and looking to playing another quarterfinal here. Won my first Grand Slam here, always going to be special (place).”