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And fewer people will have predicted that the 30-year-old Swiss with the gentle voice and the fiercest single-handed backhand in tennis would humble Novak Djokovic in four sets to become the oldest winner here since Andrés Gómez 25 years ago.
This was supposed to be the Serb’s moment, his title, his era. It was the only slam he had not won. Everybody said he would, maybe in three sets. But a city that has always embraced change has a new tennis champion, albeit one with appalling dress sense, who held his nerve long enough at the end of three hours and 12 minutes to beat the best player in the world 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.
Wawrinka, who now owns two majors, is resigned to being the Swiss not named Roger Federer, the 17-slam champion whose kind draw and peerless pedigree persuaded good judges that he had decent prospects of reaching the final, and maybe even winning it – until his compatriot stopped him brutally in three sets in the quarter-final. Missing also from the final weekend was Rafael Nadal, who has won here a record nine times.
The House of Rafa began to fall apart from the moment a metal panel fell 50 feet into the crowd from the video replay screen last Tuesday – the day Wawrinka put out Federer, the day before Djokovic beat Nadal – and it looked altogether different for the absence of its Spanish king on the closing afternoon.
Nadal has slipped to 10th in the world, the first time he has been in double digits since April 2005. For some, these are the best of times; for others they are not.
How did it happen?
Djokovic, who spent more than four hours beating Andy Murray over five sets in the semi-finals, refused to use fatigue as an excuse, and he was the overwhelming favourite going in, a player at the very peak of his powers with grand ambitions of going on to sweep all four slam titles, the first player to do so since Rod Laver in 1969.
But his serve, underpowered and at times wayward, did not click, and that gave Wawrinka space and encouragement to attack. He played through some rough patches in the first hour as his lethal backhand was warming up but, once he found a rhythm, his self-belief blossomed. Midway through the contest, he sensed weariness and doubt in his opponent – and what did he have to lose, anyway?
So he kept thrashing those ground strokes, 60 of them in the end, to unreachable corners of the court, and banged down nine aces for the cost of three double faults. He broke serve four times from 15 opportunities, twice in the final set as nerves frayed, and saved eight break points.
A 39-shot rally in the very first game (the longest of the tournament, and four more than the one in Djokovic’s match against Murray), set the tone. This would be tough all the way.
A light breezed cooled their engines on a bright but not oppressive day. Holding without stress, Djokovic kept his poise, like a jungle cat, while Wawrinka, moving economically, waited for his openings behind his big serve, but his backhand failed him too often and the set was gone.
Djokovic, behind in the serving cycle, had ball in hand to stay in the second set. Wawrinka made him tremble with his 15th forehand winner for 30-all – and Djokovic was sweating even more when he pushed his backhand wide to surrender set point. An edgy rally ended when the Serb hit long, and they went to their chairs at a set apiece.
In the third, Djokovic went drop-shot crazy, a sure sign of tiredness. He held from 2-5 down to stay in the set, his desperation showing when he came in behind his second serve, unable to pick the return off his shoelaces.
He had hit a worrying flat spot and his backhand strayed long to hand Wawrinka a 2-1 lead.
Wawrinka must have suspected what was coming: in the space of a quarter of an hour at the start of the fourth, Djokovic held, broke and held to change the complexion of the match again.
However, he was breathing heavily and constantly looking towards his box for inspiration, and the Swiss came at him once more to get back on serve – then had to save three break points for 4-4, a psychological blow as well as a physical one for Djokovic, who was red-lining to stay in contention rather than closing it out.
There was nothing he could do about the shot of the match, Wawrinka’s spectacular backhand down the line for the final break. If the Swiss’s strong right arm was shaking just a little as he stepped up to serve for the title, there was good reason. He thought he had won it with a booming serve but it was overruled, extending the agony until Wawrinka found the winner with, what else, a backhand down the line.
Nobody outside Wawrinka and his coach Magnus Norman saw this coming – and even they must have wondered about his chances. But they have worked steadily towards it for a while and not just this past fortnight, during which Wawrinka toiled a total of 13 and a half hours to get to his second slam final.
Wawrinka, the No8 seed, did not make the semi-finals of a slam in 36 attempts; under Norman, he has made four of the past seven. It rounded a nice circle when Gustavo Kuerten presented Wawrinka with the trophy that he had lifted himself after beating Norman in the 2000 final. It is not known if he complimented the winner on his shorts.
