Slumping Wawrinka refuses to press the panic button
By Julien Pretot
PARIS (Reuters) - Stan Wawrinka has only won two matches since the U.S. Open, yet there is no reason to panic, according to the Swiss, as the ATP World Tour Finals and the Davis Cup final loom.
Third seed Wawrinka produced yet another erratic performance as he slumped to a 6-7(2) 7-5 7-6(3) defeat against Kevin Anderson in the third round of the Paris Masters on Thursday, suffering his fourth defeat in five matches.
Wawrinka, who has yet to rediscover the form that allowed him to win the Australian Open this year, won a Davis Cup match against Italian Fabio Fognini and beat Austrian Domimic Thiem in the second round in Paris for his only two wins since exiting the U.S. Open at the quarter-final stage in September.
"I can't say everything is fine because I'm not winning many matches, but there is nothing much I can do about it," the Swiss, who is suffering from a cold, told a news conference.
He still believes that he can be successful at the end of the season and will at least be fresh in London when the Tour Finals start next month.
"London is a different tournament. It's a round-robin format, so whatever happened before, this is always a tournament we take a bit differently," he said.
"I will have time to rest and practice a lot just to be ready for this tournament.
"We've seen in the past it's a sort of different tournament, so we need to be fresh and we need to be ready and we need play well from the start and try to get some victories to qualify."
Instead of making changes to turn his situation around at the end of a rollercoaster year, Wawrinka will stick to his tried-and-tested routine.
"I'm not going to change my racquet or change my strings just because I'm not winning matches right now," he said.
"There is no reason for panicking. It's the end of the season. I'm still top four in the world and I have a Masters to play, a Davis Cup final on clay, which will be totally different from usual tournaments...
"I had ups and downs that were very high or very low. This is how this year was," he said.
"But I wouldn't change anything compared to any other year of my career. I played bad matches, I lost first round sometimes, I didn't play well lately, but I can still play well in the Masters (Tour Finals) win the Davis Cup and the year will be fabulous."
Switzerland play France in Lille on clay in the Davis Cup final from Nov. 21-23.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)
