2017 Season Preview: ATP No. 4 Stan Wawrinka

Over the first 10 days of 2017, we're examining the Top 10 players on the ATP and WTA tours—how will they fare during the new season? All of the previews can be found here.

Has there ever been a professional tennis player who was still developing, still finding himself, at age 31? Stan Wawrinka will celebrate his 32nd birthday in March, yet we’re still wondering if he has reached his potential.

For the moment, the one thing we do know about Stan is that we can never be sure of what’s coming next from him. Over the last three seasons, he has won three major titles and beaten the No. 1 player in the world in the final each time. When Stan gets up a full head of steam at a Slam, he may be the world’s most unstoppable player. Yet in his 13 years on tour, Wawrinka has never won a mandatory Masters 1000, and his mind and game still tend to wander in smaller events.

Heading into 2017, Wawrinka’s situation is similar to Andy Murray’s, his fellow late bloomer: Can Stan continue to improve even as he approaches his mid-30s? Which will win out, his slowly growing confidence or his inevitable physical decline? As with Murray, so far it hasn’t been a contest; Wawrinka is as powerful as he has ever been, and while he’s hardly young, it would be a surprise if he began to show signs of age this season. He seems, after all of these years, to have found his niche as the tour’s most dangerously inconsistent threat.

Which takes us to our next question about Stan: Can he keep his three-year Slam winning streak alive? The current landscape would seem to be fertile ground for an opportunist like Wawrinka. Murray is new to the No. 1 job; Novak Djokovic is trying to regain his confidence; Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are testing their bodies out after injuries; and guys like Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori are trying to make the breakthrough that Stan has already made. Even at 31, Wawrinka’s immediate future looks bright.