“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
These words from Irish playwright, poet and Nobel winner Samuel Beckett’s novella Worstward Ho had been buzzing around in Stanislas Wawrinka’s head for a “long time”. Last year, he decided to get it inscribed in blue on his left forearm.
“It was part of my life, how I see the life, and especially how I see the tennis life,” he said on Sunday, after becoming only the second man (Juan Martin Del Potro being the first) from outside the Big Four – Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Roger Federer – to win a grand since Marat Safin’s Australian Open triumph in 2005.
“Except for Novak, Rafa, Andy and Roger, you always lose at the end of a tournament so you have to be positive and come back and continue and fight,” he added.
And he has been doing that since making his first appearance at a grand slam – the 2005 French Open. That year, Nadal won the first of his eight Roland Garros crowns. The Spaniard has five other majors as well and was overwhelming favourite to match Pete Sampras’ record of 14 grand slams on Sunday.
Winner of the 2003 French Open junior crown, Wawrinka had not even won a Masters, forget a major.
He had been to 35 grand slams, and the five-set loss to Djokovic in the US Open semis last year was his best performance. Against Nadal, the Swiss had never taken a set off the Spaniard in 12 previous meetings. But as Sampras said before the semis, “He’s been knocking on the door for a couple years now. He’s stepping through that door.”
And he did not step through gently, but rather barged it open. With Beckett’s epigram on his arm and Magnus Norman in his corner, Wawrinka has just shown it is never too late. At 28, he is the oldest first-time grand slam champion since Goran Ivanisevic, who was 29 when took the 2001 Wimbledon crown. And only Ivanisevic has more grand slam appearances (48) before his first major.
Wawrinka is also the first man to beat both Djokovic and Nadal at the same grand slam, and he is the first grand slam champion to beat the No1 and No2 ranked players since Sergi Bruguera at the 1993 French Open.
And how does he feel about his conquest?
“To be honest,” he said, “I don’t realise. Feels strange. It’s quite crazy what’s happening right now. I never expected to win a grand slam. I never dreamed about that because for me, I was not good enough to beat those guys.”
But, as Beckett wrote at another time, “Dear incomprehension, it’s thanks to you I’ll be myself, in the end”... even if it takes 36 grand slams.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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