Reuters
London, Nov 17: Mixing the top eight players in London for the ATP’s season-ending grand finale should be a recipe for thrilling fares but a large crowd was again left short-changed here Monday evening with Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, the biggest disappointment.
Wawrinka, who produced arguably the year’s standout performance when he beat Novak Djokovic in the French Open final, appeared at times to be going through the motions against Rafa Nadal in the night session at the O2 Arena here.
Rushing through points and spraying 35 unforced errors, World No. 4 Wawrinka, who lost an epic semifinal here last year to Roger Federer, collapsed to a 3-6, 2-6 defeat against Nadal.
In the day’s earlier Ilie Nastase Group match, home favourite and World No. 2 Andy Murray was at least made to scrap for his 6-4, 6-4 win over the dogged Spaniard, David Ferrer.
“I don’t know. Was just a really bad day at the office. Many little things that weren’t good today (Monday),” 30-year-old Wawrinka, who is guaranteed $1,67,000 just for showing up, told reporters when asked about his performance. “It was a really bad match. Bad behaviour in the second set. Things weren’t too great about myself, just disappointed in general. Everything went wrong,” he added.
Things however, did not start well for Nadal when he lost his opening service game to love, but he replied immediately in similar fashion and moved 5-3 ahead when his opponent blazed a forehand wide. Closing out the set was then just a mere formality.
Nadal failed to convert any of the seven breakpoints a rattled Wawrinka offered up at the start of the second set and then saved two himself in the next game, one with a stunning lob. Wawrinka then crumbled.
“Every day for me now is an opportunity to enjoy on court, enjoy the competition, something that I missed for moments this year,” Nadal said after the match.
Murray, despite having one eye on next week’s Davis Cup final in Belgium, definitely looks capable of claiming the title and complete the hat-trick of Wimbledon, Olympic gold and Tour Finals in his home city. He was supreme in his demolition of Ferrer.
