fAccording to the Canadian Press on Wednesday, three-time grand slam champion Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland made history in his home country on Wednesday by becoming the oldest player to win a match in the history of the Swiss Indoor Men’s Tennis Tournament in Basel. At the age of 39, Wawrinka defeated Adrian Mannarino of France 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 in the first round.
Wawrinka’s serve worked extremely well. He had 13 aces, compared to six aces for Mannarino. When it came to double faults, Mannarino had three, while Wawrinka had one.
It was interesting that Wawrinka and Mannarino are both veterans in professional tennis. While Wawrinka is one year younger than 40, Mannarino is 36 years old. This was the first time in four meetings that Wawrinka has beaten Mannarino. Mannarino’s wins came in the third round of Miami in 2015 (7-6, 7-6), in the first round of Kazakhstan in 2022 (1-6, 6-2, 6-3), and in the first round of the 2024 Australian Open (6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-0).
Wawrinka has never won the Swiss Indoors, but has won the Geneva Open, which is a clay court event leading up to the French Open, twice. In 2016, Wawrinka defeated 2014 United States Open champion Marin Cilic of Croatia, 6-4, 7-6. Then in 2017, Wawrinka defended his title by beating Mischa Zverev of Germany, the older brother of German Olympic gold medalist Alexander Zverev from the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
On Thursday in the second round, Wawrinka was unable to build on the momentum from Wednesday. He lost to American Ben Shelton 7-6, 7-5. Wawrinka’s grand slam titles were in three consecutive years. They came at the Australian Open in 2014, the French Open in 2015, and the United States Open in 2016.
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