Stan Wawrinka Defeats Sam Querrey, AO 2013: Story and Pictures

January 18, 2013 Val and J.D.

Stan Wawrinka black shirt white shorts kit pecs serve Querrey match Australian Open pictures photos screencaps — **Stan sizing up the competition.**

In the third round of the Australian Open, Stan Wawrinka faced the big-serving American, 20th seed Sam Querrey. A match with Querrey often means hanging on for dear life to your own serve, and doing a lot of standing with aces flying past you on his serve. You just have to ride it out and wait for your moments. Which is what Stan did, along with eventually figuring out how to get his racquet on quite a lot of those thundering Querrey serves. The Swiss player took the match in a straight-sets victory, 7-6(6) 7-5 6-4.

Stanislas Wawrinka Sam Querrey match sunlight sunlit black white pretty pictures images screencaps photos — **Sunlit Stan**

One of the most entertaining aspects of watching the match through ESPN’s online coverage was listening to the very pro-American commentators Jeff Tarango and Leif Shiras start gushing over Stan’s play not long into the match. First there was the amazement at a huge proportion of his shots landing just on, inside, or barely hugging the outside edge of the lines. Then the appreciation of all the power on his one-handed backhand, particularly considering the amount of heat Sam was throwing down with his forehand.

My own tweets mostly read like this:

@TennisInsideOut: Another big roar from Stan after a searing DTL pass. Up 30-15 on Sam’s serve.

@TennisInsideOut: STANNNN!! Damn. Nailbiter there. Stan in big trouble, hits some ridiculous line painters and a wicked angled volley to get the hold.

And finally…

@TennisInsideOut: Good gravy. Stan is just…unfff…

Sure, there were a few bobbles, a few shots hit long. Yes his first serve percentage at one point was minus 123% but hey, there’s always that tough fighting Stan spirit:

@TennisInsideOut: ALLEZ!!!! Stan pumped as he comes back from 5 serve faults in a row to hold. Good boy.

Thankfully he ended with a little over 50% on serve, and when they went in, they were quite impressive. He ended with 13 aces (2 more than Querrey) and his fastest serve was 215kmh (Querrey’s was at 213kmh!). When that 1st serve successfully bounded down the T or slid off wide, he won 84% of the points.

Australian Open 2013 Stan Wawrinka Stanley serve photos sizing up competition pictures screencaps images — ***“Think if I serve it down the middle for the 500th time, he’ll catch on? Nah, probably not.”***

All in all, Stan seemed to have a good game plan in mind and stuck to it throughout the match. Sam is strong, and a good volleyer, and kept pressing all the way to the end. These two had an over-four-and-a-half-hour 7-6(9), 6-7(5), 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 match at the USO in 2010, so it was good to see Stan make the right adjustments to close this out in three.

Some more screencaps from the match: