by Pete Bodo
PARIS—Stan "Manislaus" Wawrinka is a check of a tennis player. Hold it. That's a typo. He's actually of Czech descent, and a heck of a tennis player. He's got a big, one-handed backhand, and comes closer than anyone but Novak Djokovic to flat-out dictating from that side. His forehand is less reliable, but it can be wicked, a slapshot clocked with terrific racket-head speed.
Alright, so you too have noticed that the Manislaus appears to have hit the buffet table in the players' lounge extra hard and often in recent days. So what? He came back from two sets down against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his third-round match at Roland Garros, didn't he? One of that rare breed, the bearded tennis player, Wawrinka is more than a gifted ball striker; the minor league tours and leagues are choc-a-bloc with those. Wawrinka is also No. 14 in the world.
It's generally considered a pleasure to match wits and strokes with someone who has such a clean game and such nice strokes, and Wawrinka's countryman Roger Federer has said as much. You can almost hear him thinking out loud: "Stan is a great little tennis player, everyone ought to own one!
Alas, that's about what it's come to over time. Stan has had the misfortune to be Federer's buddy, practice partner, Davis Cup teamamate, and, ultimately, whipping boy. Punch Wawrinka's name into the ATP website's search engine and the very first article it coughs up is from the May issue of the ATP's own Deuce magazine, and it begins like this: If you have to be an understudy on Broadway, it's best if it be to the lead actor in Phantom of the Opera. In tennis, if you have to be in the shadow of your countryman, then it may as well be Roger Federer. Chances are, you'll eventually get your moment to shine.
You've got to wonder if Wawrinka gets sick of reading that kind of stuff. He certainly could be forgiven for wondering just when that "moment to shine" might arrive. Over time, Wawrinka has taken his beatings like the Manislaus he is. The Swiss fellas have played 10 matches, and Wawrinka won just once (Monte Carlo, 2009). Apart from that shining moment, Wawrinka has won exactly one set in nine matches (the first set of their 2010 match in Stockholm), and none in their meetings at majors.
Wawrinka has become Federer's set-up man, and he played that role beautifully again on this spring day at Roland Garros. But don't attempt to fly that theory by Federer, who was in a sunny mood after he routined Wawrinka, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5, to land in the quarterfinals of the French Open. The way Federer tells it, his rivalry with Wawrinka has been more nip-and-tuck than slice and dice.
"I thought since the tough match we had in Stockholm, actually where he was I think up a set and a break and was really beating me quite easily, maybe I found a way to play him. And since then I've played well against him. So I'm very happy with the way it went. I knew the danger coming into this match on clay. I think still it is his best surface, even though maybe in the overall scheme of things it's been somewhat of a disappointing clay court season for him. He didn't play Monaco and maybe he went through the same thing I went through last year, just not having enough matches for a bit of a period.
But, look, I thought I played well today. I think the first two sets were great."
You can look at Fedrerer's comments a number of ways: Mayve he's just trying to make his set-up man look better, when doing so doesn't exactly diminish Federer's status. Maybe Roger really does think he figured out Wawrinka; in which case he surely was the last to know. The remarks may be an attempt to turn horse dung into ice cream, which is pretty typical of the breed. There are no easy matches, the diligent pro will tell you, which is a pro's way of getting motivated for. . . easy matches. Or we can take Federer's remarks as a sign that he's got the eye of the tiger now; he's not here to be objective or to wax nostalgic. He's among us to make the case that he's still upward arcing, figuring things out, mastering tasks.
The latter strategy, unconscious though it may be, is a particularly good way to convince us, and perhaps himself, that he's as dangerous at this French Open as his impressive scores suggest. Through four matches, Federer hasn't lost a set. He's played just one tiebreaker (in the first round, against Feliciano Lopez) and was pushed to 7-5 only once, by Wawrinka today. Playing the way Federer has been doing here makes a fella feel good, even if the opponents have been stiffs.
Although this is my first day here, I was struck by how Federer looked just as impressive in the interview room as he did on the court. This is not the Roger Federer we've sometimes seen hugging himself with his own arms, hat brim pulled low to those predatory eyebrows, his voice saved from being merely monotone by the touch of peevishness percolating beneath its surface. If this Roger Federer is feeling like the world is passing him by, you'd never know it. Or perhaps he's just keeping his own counsel, and actually deriving some secret delight from the way the joke's on Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal now.
Federer informally and briefly joked around with some of his acquaintances in the Swiss media before his interview. And in the official part he joked about his backhand, a stroke about which very few of his rivals found anything even remotely funny. This occured during a discussion of the relative merits of the different backhands.
"The variety is obviously nicer to have, I think, with a one-hander. But you've got to be strong. I think it's hard early on when you're young to switch to a one-hander, just because it takes a lot of strength, which you don't have early on, so it's frustrating. I went through that, and honestly I can't believe how good my backhand has become over the years, because it was never my strength. But everybody played into it, and today it's actually pretty good. I think that happened to many players out there on tour. You know, you thought this guy has a weak forehand, everybody plays into it, and all of a sudden today it's a great forehand. We help each other out really, I think."
I don't know how much we can legitimately read into these general behaviors and attitudes,this pleasant jocularity; at the end of the day, you still have to go out and hit the ball where the other guy ain't, and withstand the terrific if ephemeral and distinctly non-life-altering mental pressures of match play. As much stock as Federer may have put in that Stockholm comeback, it was clear from the get-go today that Wawrinka has a unique talent for teeing the ball up for Federer. It's such an unintentional, coincidental product of the precise and delicate way in which their games, their strokes, their histories and perhaps even their personalities match up that there's real beauty to it, like it's really a well-orchestrated dance rather than a competition.
Of course, the really serious competition for Federer is yet to come, but why not let him enjoy these moments while he can? And who knows what they might add up to, on a warm and sunny week in Paris.