Back to Day 4 preview: Wawrinka, Kerber, Nishikori step up

Day 4 preview: Wawrinka, Kerber, Nishikori step up

3 January 2017, by Dan Imhoff

He is the man with the A-game to beat any opponent on his day; the gifted Swiss with arguably the finest single-handed backhand the game has seen.

On Wednesday night, that backhand will be unfurled on Pat Rafter Arena when Stan Wawrinka makes his Brisbane International debut against Serb Viktor Troicki.

The No.2 seed was a late arrival to the grand slam winners’ brigade when he landed the Australian Open title at 28 in 2014.

That final victory over Rafael Nadal would set the wheels in motion for a subsequent two major final boilovers – all over reigning No.1s.

He claimed the 2015 French Open to end Novak Djokovic’s calendar-year Grand Slam bid and again denied the Serb to land last year’s US Open.

Wawrinka holds a commanding 6-0 head-to-head record against world No.29 Troicki, who closed out his rain-interrupted first-round match against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka on Tuesday.

The Serb secured his second Sydney title last season and reached the final in Sofia.

This time last year, women’s top seed Angelique Kerber had not reached a grand slam semifinal in 3.5 years, while Ash Barty was playing cricket for the Brisbane Heat in the Women’s Big Bash League having left the game, which had taken her to a junior Wimbledon title.

What a difference 12 months can make. Kerber has displaced Serena Williams from the top of the pecking order with two grand slam titles, while Barty has returned to tennis, contesting her first tour match – and winning it – on home soil since a first-round exit to Williams at the Australian Open three years ago.

While the two have never faced off, both played a Fed Cup semifinal tie on Pat Rafter Arena, when Germany beat Australia in 2014.

Wildcard Barty, currently at No.271 in the rankings, easily dispatched of Serbian Aleksandra Krunic in the opening round to set up the Tuesday night clash.

It has been a huge 12 months on the up, too, for the two women squaring off in Wednesday’s day session on PRA. Second seed Dominika Cibulkova, a former Australian Open finalist, had slid to world No.66 last February, due to an Achilles injury, before mounting her career-best season to finish at No.5.

The Slovakian finished on a high, bagging her biggest title to date – the season-ending WTA Tour Finals in Singapore, where she downed world No.1 Kerber in the decider.

The 27-year-old owns a 4-0 record against her opponent, China’s Shuai Zhang, a player who admitted to being on the verge of walking away from tennis before her breakthrough 2016 Australian Open run.

Zhang, also 27, arrived at Melbourne Park ranked No.133 and won three rounds of qualifying and four main draw matches to become an unlikely grand slam quarterfinalist. She ended the year on the verge of the top 20.

Three-time Brisbane semifinalist Kei Nishikori will play his first singles match of 2017 on PRA on Wednesday. The Japanese world No.5 takes on American qualifier Jared Donaldson for the first time after a season in which he snared a fourth straight Memphis title, won the Olympic bronze medal over Nadal and reached his second grand slam semifinal at the US Open, after taking down Andy Murray in a five-set quarterfinal.

World No.105 Donaldson has won three rounds of qualifying and claimed the battle of the big servers in his first round against Gilles Muller.

Spanish eighth seed David Ferrer got his Brisbane International debut off to the perfect start with victory over home hope Bernard Tomic on Monday. The former world No.3 will look to inflict further pain on the locals when he meets Sydneysider Jordan Thompson in the second round. Ferrer reached six semifinals in 2016, however it was the first time in 11 seasons he did not reach at least one final.

The world No.21 will start a strong favourite against Australian Olympian Thompson, who captured four Challenger level titles to finish at a career-best No.79 in the rankings.