Back to drawing board for Wawrinka

Aussie Open champ bundled out in opening round at Roland Garros

The positive vibes and big-deal victories began for Stan Wawrinka at last year's US Open, back when he still went by "Stanislas", and picked up steam at this year's Australian Open, where he earned the right to forever be called "major champion".

And yet all of that seemed so far away late on Monday at the French Open as dusk approached-and defeat became apparent-in Wawrinka's first Grand Slam match since winning his first major title.

Surprisingly, Wawrinka looked listless. More stunningly, he looked very little like a guy who was seeded No 3 behind Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic and proclaimed himself "one of the favorites" just a few days earlier. In by far the biggest development of the tournament's first two days, Wawrinka lost in the first round at Roland Garros, 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, 6-0 to 41st-ranked Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain.

"I was trying to find my game, trying ... to be aggressive, trying to find anything. And I didn't," said Wawrinka, whose trademark one-handed backhand was off target throughout. "I was completely flat."

He is the first Australian Open champ to exit in the first round of that same year's French Open since Petr Korda in 1998.

"I have to look at the future because I can't change the result. It's about what I want and the way I want it," he said.

Victory over fellow Swiss and mentor Roger Federer in the final of the Monte Carlo Masters at the start of the claycourt season appeared to have underlined Wawrinka's arrival at the top of the game.

However, his year has been patchy and he arrived in Paris struggling for form.

"It's been different since the beginning of the year. I had a difficult period after Miami, I've had ups and downs," he said. "The pressure is different and my expectations are different. Everything goes so well in practice and then I am very demanding of myself during matches.

"I could see myself playing bad but there are days like that and I need to accept that," he said.

Wawrinka led 3-1 in the first set only to let it slip away and although he took the second, the third and fourth sets were ones he will want to forget quickly.

"I think I was really close to completely changing the match but in the end I lost the last two sets 6-2, 6-0," said Wawrinka, who racked up 62 unforced errors.

"In the first set I should not have lost after leading 3-1. I was completely flat, I was not aggressive. Everything was terrible."

Having just won his maiden Grand Slam title, Wawrinka was left to reflect on the level of consistency achieved by the top players in the game-starting with Federer who has a record 17 major titles to his name.

"I can appreciate what they do, how incredible this is. Sometimes you just don't realize how tough what they achieve is," he said.

Garcia-Lopez has never been past the third round at a major.

During a pre-tournament news conference on Friday, Wawrinka spoke about deriving confidence from his recent spate of success.

Long in the shadow of Federer, his Swiss Davis Cup and Olympic teammate, not to mention good friend, Wawrinka reached his first major semifinal in New York last September, beating defending champion Andy Murray before losing a five-setter to Djokovic. In January, Wawrinka topped Nadal in the Australian Open final.

Boosting his claycourt bona fides heading to Paris, Wawrinka defeated Federer in April's final at the Monte Carlo Masters.

While he has never been beyond the quarterfinals at the French Open, Wawrinka seemed primed to do so.

Instead, he lost in the first round in Paris for the first time since 2006, when he was only 21.

"I need to put the puzzle back together, but differently than in the past," Wawrinka said, "because now-after winning a Grand Slam, (Monte Carlo), being No. 3 in the world-everything is different."

Wawrinka-who recently told the ATP he would rather go by the shortened version of his first name-finished with 34 more unforced errors than Garcia-Lopez.

"I think what made him lose is he was not very strong mentally-and I was," said Garcia-Lopez, who thought the match would be suspended because of impending darkness; there are no artificial lights on French Open courts.

"I'm not as overwhelmed by emotions as I used to be," Garcia-Lopez said. "I played my game, on my terms."

Wawrinka's loss means yet another season will pass without one man winning the Australian Open and French Open; Jim Courier was the last to accomplish that double, in 1992.

(China Daily 05/28/2014 page24)