By Chris Oddo | Saturday, January 24, 2015
Stan Wawrinka is doesn't mind if nobody is paying attention to him in Melbourne. He just wants to keep winning.
Photo Source: Corleve
Defending champion Stan Wawrinka has won ten straight matches at the Australian Open, nine straight sets at this year’s event, and is playing perhaps just as well as he was this time last year when he claimed his first major title. But after dismantling Finn Jarkko Nieminen, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 on Day 6, Wawrinka says he’s more than happy to stay under the radar.
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As long as he’s playing lights-out tennis and progressing through the draw, it’s all good.
“I think I'm feeling good since the beginning of the tournament,” Wawrinka told reporters after his 55-winner performance on Saturday in Melbourne. “For sure I'm not the focus on the tournament because there's Novak, Rafa coming back from injury, was Roger also just lost, there's Kyrgios, Tomic still playing. For sure I'm not the focus. For me doesn't matter.”
What matters to the man we've dubbed the Stanimal is this: Wawrinka reached his fourth career round of 16 at Melbourne by breaking Nieminen on six of sixteen opportunities. From the service stripe, Wawrinka was invincible, winning 37 of 41 first serve points and saving two of three break points.
In other words, he's playing well enough to be considered one of the favorites to win it all down under--whether we're paying attention or not.
The 29-year-old Swiss No. 2 will face Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the round of 16. Wawrinka lost to the Spaniard in his first Grand Slam match after winning in Australia, and knows he could be in for a tough battle.
“He's been playing really good,” Wawrinka said. “I saw him a little bit this tournament. I lost against him last year French Open first round. We had some tough battle in the past. It's never easy. Think it will, again, depend a lot of me, the way I'm going to play, the way I'm going to find my game to be aggressive, because I need to make the game.”
Around the Grounds
In other men’s singles action on Day 6, 8th-seeded Milos Raonic continued his fine play by taking down Benjamin Becker in straight sets. “I'm happy that I played better than my second round, and that's all I can really ask from myself,” Raonic said after the 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 decision. “I focused and executed on what I needed to do.”
Feliciano Lopez was also victorious in straight-sets, taking down Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz, 7-6(6), 6-4, 7-6(3). Lopez has now reached the round of 16 in Melbourne in two of the last three years, equaling his best result.