Wawrinka Defeats an Ailing Nadal to Win Australian Open

MELBOURNE, Australia - As the first set of the men's singles final at the Australian Open unfolded Sunday, those who assembled inside Rod Laver Arena watched in disbelief. There were two players and one was dominating and his name was not Rafael Nadal.

His name, instead, was Stanislas Wawrinka. Not only was he playing in his first Australian Open final, but in 12 previous matches against Nadal, he had not managed to win even one of 26 combined sets.

Until Sunday. Until Wawrinka's sublime play and Nadal's unexpected back issues combined to make Wawrinka the surprise Australian Open champion, a player who won his first Grand Slam in his first Grand Slam final. In victory, Wawrinka became the first player to defeat the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the same Grand Slam to win it.

This was, to understate, unusual. In the previous 35 men's singles finals, 34 were won by four men - Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. It seemed all but certain Sunday that Nadal would make it 35 of 36 at Melbourne Park.

The first three sets played out like a three-act play, each act so different as to seem like there were three separate matches. Set one: Wawrinka went all Rod Laver and pushed Nadal around. Set two: Nadal appeared to throw out his back and needed a medical timeout and played with a perma-grimace. Set three: Nadal moved better, the tension dissipated and Wawrinka came undone.

Wawrinka recovered in the fourth set and broke Nadal's serve and brought the strangest match of an odd tournament to a conclusion no one had expected at the outset, perhaps even Wawrinka himself. It was fitting. After four days of extreme heat, after a string of losses from Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka, it was Wawrinka, the eighth seed, who was left standing.

The last time a seed lower than eight won the Australian Open was in 2002, when Thomas Johansson did. The last time any seed as low as Wawrinka won any men's Grand Slam was in 2004, when Gaston Gaudio triumphed at Roland Garros.

In the first set, Wawrinka bullied Nadal, something that happens rarely and almost never in Grand Slam tournaments and about as often in a major final as stumbling upon a unicorn. Wawrinka served-and-volleyed. He laced one-handed backhand winners down the line. He took Nadal out of position and went the other way.

One game proved particularly instructive. Wawrinka was serving for the first set, ahead, 5-3, but behind 0-40 in the game. Nadal faced three second serves on those break points and failed to convert on all of them. Wawrinka boomed an ace wide to hold for a 34th-consecutive service game.

Then the second set started, and it became clearer and clearer that Nadal was not at full strength. Throughout the tournament, he toughed out win after win despite a blister about the size of his quarter on his left palm; the most analyzed, discussed and shown-on television blister, it seemed, in the history of tennis.

But Nadal did not take a medical timeout in the second set because his blister hurt. He took the timeout because of his back, and the pain appeared severe and seemed to worsen as the second set wore on.

Wawrinka continued cranking early in the second, before the medical timeout. He ripped inside-out forehand winners. He smacked one return on the backhand side at such an extreme angle Nadal could only watch as it bounced and kicked sideways. Birds circled above Rod Laver Arena, and it seemed fair to wonder if a buzzard or two was not up there among them.

Nadal took the medical timeout at roughly 8:40 p.m. local time. He had clutched his back a few times before that, but it was unclear at that point just how much pain he was in. He retreated to the locker room, while Wawrinka appeared to talk to an official about what seemed like potentially more of a stall tactic than an emergency.

When Nadal returned from the locker room, he did so shirtless, and the crowd mostly booed him when he stepped back into the court. That seemed harsh as the set wore on, as Nadal basically flicked serves over the net because he could hardly turn on them.

Nadal spent one second-set changeover with his head buried in his hands. He spent the time between the second and third sets getting rubbed down. He grimaced and moved gingerly and generally played like a far older man.

As Nadal fought through the pain when many wondered if he would retire, it was tricky for Wawrinka, too (although more difficult, obviously, for the injured party). It looked Wawrinka was weighing how he should play, how aggressive he should be, whether to pile on a clearly diminished opponent. Then again, with the stakes involved, what was he supposed to do? Ease up?

Wawrinka's level slowed some and Nadal's picked up. It was clear that Nadal's injury had impacted both players, even if inadvertently. Nadal started to move better. He held serve to start the third set and broke Wawrinka after that. There was some daylight, and though he still could not serve or move all that well, he mounted an odd comeback.

When it ended, the celebration was muted. Wawrinka smiled but not widely and not for long. He threw a wristband into the stands. He sipped water. The crowd, stunned, cheered, and with that the strangest tennis tournament in recent memory had ended.