When people listed their potential dark horses to win the Australian Open on the men's side, Stanislas Wawrinka's name came up as a result of his incredible performance at the 2013 Australian Open against Novak Djokovic. But nobody actually thought that Wawrinka would win it all. To those of us who follow the ATP World Tour year round, we can't say we were shocked by this result given Stan's great season in 2013, but we also can't say we saw it coming either. It feels weird to see somebody not named Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, or Andy Murray walk away with the title at the end of a grand slam. Given how dominant those four players have been over the past several seasons, the odds that somebody wins a grand slam outside of those four seems almost impossible, which is why many tennis fans including myself still feel like we are in a dream every time we see the words "Stanislas Wawrinka Grand Slam Champion" in a cohesive sentence.
But with Wawrinka actually being the 2014 Australian Open champion, the landscape of the 2014 ATP World Tour season and how it ultimately shakes out has suddenly become a lot more cloudy than clear. Wawrinka has now leapfrogged both Roger Federer and Andy Murray in the rankings as a result of his grand slam title, shooting up to #3 in the world, only behind Rafael Nadal who is #1 and Novak Djokovic who is #2. But while many different possible scenarios could ultimately play out (with Wawrinka even finishing the year #1 should he win another grand slam title), one thing that definitely seems to be true is that his title most greatly affects Novak Djokovic's season, really putting Djokovic behind the 8-ball.
If you read my preview for the Australian Open, you would know that I said that Djokovic had to win this Australian Open in order to bounce back and re-establish himself. I stand by that, and what's worse is that he wasn't beaten by Nadal, he was beaten by Wawrinka. This isn't to take anything away from Wawrinka, rather it is to highlight the fact that Djokovic has more than just Nadal and Murray to worry about at this stage of his career. He also has Wawrinka, and possibly others as well. Failing to win the Australian Open is potentially lethal to Djokovic's season because this was the one grand slam event where he was the clear favorite. The rest of the grand slams he isn't necessarily the favorite. Rafael Nadal is the clear favorite to win the French, Wimbledon seems to be pretty evenly split between Murray, Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer with Murray having the slight edge, and the US Open is pretty evenly split except now we probably say that Wawrinka is in that mix to win it and not Federer. The point is, with the rest of the grand slams not being in his favor to win, it'll be very hard for Djokovic to win a grand slam, which means his odds of not winning a grand slam in 2014 are very high.
Failing to win a grand slam in 2014 would be devastating for Djokovic as he tries to establish himself as an all-time great. I think we already know that he is one of the greatest players to ever play, but history judges players by their total grand slam titles, and not on just one or two amazing seasons. The bottom line is that the victory of Stanislas Wawrinka at the Australian Open really puts Novak Djokovic into a tough situation since his odds of not winning a grand slam are suddenly quite high. It'll be interesting to see how Djokovic responds as the season goes on not only in the grand slams, but also in the future masters events such as Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, and Madrid since those events will give us a good indicator of where his head is going into the remaining three grand slams.
---Ben Parker: follow me on twitter @atp_guy
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