The Wild Card

Stan Wawrinka looked to his player box and pointed to his temple after winning the final point of his French Open semifinal against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Friday.

As far as I can remember, this is a move he has been making since his run to the Australian Open title 16 months ago. Which would make sense, because Stan’s message has never seemed to be, “I’m so smart," or "I'm a mental giant." Instead, it has always looked to me as if he’s saying, “This time, I made the right decision. This time, I stayed calm. This time, I got it right.”

The 30-year-old Wawrinka would be the first to admit that he hasn't always gotten it right. He’s the man who failed against the top players so many times that he had the word tattooed on his arm. But even since he stopped failing in Melbourne last year, he hasn’t exactly left the old, up-and-down Stan behind. For every fertile period of play there has been a fallow one. For every spectacular win over a Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer, there has been a head-scratching loss to a Federico Delbonis or Robin Haase. For every backhand that finds the corner, there’s a low-percentage shot that misses the mark. Coming into the French Open, Wawrinka’s ranking, after peaking last year at No. 3, seemed to find its level, in the lower reaches of the Top 10.

Now, after a few lows, Wawrinka is on a major high again: He's in his first French Open final. Wawrinka’s last two matches have shown him at his best, first physically and then mentally.

In the quarterfinals, he did what only he can do: Pummel the ball past Federer for three straight sets, on a slow red-clay court, in a stiff breeze. Wawrinka’s game is not as stylish as Federer’s; it’s not as sleekly clinical as Novak Djokovic’s; it doesn’t have the gusto of Nadal’s. But Stan’s point-killing power can be jaw-dropping. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone create more of it from deeper in the court, off balls that have no pace, with one hand on the racquet, than he does. For much of their quarterfinal, Federer was reduced to guessing and lunging at Wawrinka's bullets. If most modern tennis players are all about leg strength, Wawrinka is all about what he can do with his upper body.

“When I play good tennis, when I play my best tennis,” Wawrinka said on Wednesday, “I can play so heavy from both sides that it’s really tough for the opponent to play, and that’s why Roger was struggling today, I was playing so well.”

The trouble is, no player can make all-out power tennis into an everyday strategy. Wawrinka, like all heavy hitters, will eventually misfire. That’s what happened, to a certain degree, against Tsonga on Friday. Wawrinka hit 15 aces and 60 winners over four sets, but he threw in his share of errors and double faults, and lost a second set that he should have won.

In that sense, this semi was a more typical Wawrinka three-out-of-five-set match: It was choppy and erratic, and it was hard to get a feel for who had the momentum. This time, though, Wawrinka won not with raw power, or not just with raw power. He won with clutch play. Seventeen times Tsonga reached break point; 16 times Wawrinka saved it.

“It was a strange match for the break points for sure,” Wawrinka said after his 6-3, 6-7 (1), 7-6 (3), 6-4 win. “The server was always finding a good serve.”

“I feel great with my game in general, not only my serve,” he continued. “I feel strong, I’m playing well.”

You might say that Wawrinka took a page from Federer’s "serve clutch, win tiebreakers" playbook today. Stan was uncanny in his ability to, as he said, find a first serve when he needed one, on a day when he made just 31 percent of them over the course of one set. And while he returned poorly for long stretches, on the crucial point of the match, at 3-3 in the third-set tiebreaker, Wawrinka reflexed a 133-m.p.h. Tsonga serve back and won the point.

Still, as one reporter learned today, it’s probably better to leave the comparisons to Federer behind, at least in front of Stan. This was how the first exchange in Wawrinka’s post-match presser went:

Q: You have a chance to equalize Roger Federer in Roland Garros number of Slams.”

Wawrinka: Great for the first question to put Roger on it.

You can understand his annoyance. Wherever Wawrinka goes, Federer’s shadow follows; whatever he accomplishes, it will never equal what Federer has done. It seemed to be no accident that Wawrinka emphasized the fact that it was, first and foremost, his own good play that knocked Federer out of the tournament.

Now, on Sunday, Wawrinka has a chance to equal Federer’s lone victory at Roland Garros. He has a chance, possibly, to spoil Djokovic’s seemingly certain run to the title—a good chance, now that Djokovic and Murray will have to finish their semifinal on Saturday.

Most of all, though, Wawrinka has a chance, at 30, to prove that his Australian Open title was something that could be repeated, and to enter the elite rank of players who have won more than one major. That should, by all rights, free him from the long shadows of Federer for good.

Maybe that’s what Wawrinka means when he points to his head: I’ve done this before; I can do this again. Now it's a matter of doing what he knows.