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Melbourne, January 30
A 2014 season which began for Stan Wawrinka with an Australian Open triumph and ended with Davis Cup glory finally caught up with the Swiss at Melbourne Park on Friday as he was left "mentally completely dead".
The fourth seed's title defence fizzled out in a low quality 7-6(1) 3-6 6-4 4-6 6-0 semi-final loss to world number one Novak Djokovic and Wawrinka admitted he was simply running on empty.
"I told my coach before the match and yesterday that I was mentally completely dead and no battery," he told reporters.
Tough to focus on what I want to do. Tough to focus on my game. And that's what happened." The 29-year-old Wawrinka had entered the match after a clinical destruction of Kei Nishikori in the quarter-finals, but both he and the Serb appeared flat on Rod Laver Arena on Friday, with neither anywhere near the level expected for a semi-final. The pair had played two epic five set encounters over the last two Australian Open tournaments, with the winner eventually going on to clinch the title. Wawrinka, however, said his maiden grand slam win 12 months ago, which was the springboard for a season best three titles and a first Davis Cup triumph with Switzerland, may have contributed to the insipid end to his Melbourne Park title defence. — Reuters
Paes in mixed doubles final
Leander Paes reached yet another Grand Slam final when he made it in to the summit clash of the Australian Open, partnering Swiss veteran Martina Hingis in mixed doubles. They beat Su-Wei Hsieh (Chinese Taipei) and Pablo Cuevas (Uruguay) 7-5, 6-4. However, it was the end of the road for top seeds Sania Mirza and Bruno Soares in the other semifinal of the same category when they lost 6-3, 2-6, 8-10 to French-Canadian third seeds Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor. Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova won their first Grand Slam doubles titles at the Australian Open with a 6-4 7-6(5) victory over Zheng Jie and Chan Yung-jan.