After more than a year, Stan Wawrinka will play his first match on the ATP Tour at the 2022 Monte-Carlo Masters.
Stan Wawrinka won at least one title and finished in the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings every year from 2013 until 2017. Since then, the Swiss player has won only 1 ATP Challenger title, even though he played some good tennis in 2019 and 2020.
However, in 2021 he played only six matches, but now it's time for Stan the Man to come back at the Monte-Carlo Masters. Before coming back to the ATP Tour, former world number 3 played a Challenger event in Marbella, where he lost in the first round to Elias Ymer.
Coming back after more than a year, Wawrinka had a lot of emotions during his pre-tournament press conference. Naturally, the reporters had a lot of questions, but the Swiss player said that his comeback to the 2022 Monte-Carlo Masters draw is "not a miracle."
"It is not a miracle, I wouldn't say that, but it was very long and difficult, more than a year. I thought I would be out only a few weeks. It lasted a whole year with many moments of doubts. It was extremely long and tough. I really needed to have the willpower to come back, to have the strength to go through rehab and everything, and I'm very happy to be here now."
"Of course there were those questions in my mind. I was afraid things wouldn't happen the way I wanted them to happen, and when you have those difficult times and those doubts, you know you need to go through rehab to be able to live a normal daily life anyway."
"So in my mind, one way or the other, I knew I would want to come back. Maybe saying good-bye, having pain would be an option, but for the time being things are going well. I can practise a lot, which is good. I hope I'll be able to do that the whole year."
Being away from the Tour for so long and then coming back takes a lot of hard work as an athlete needs to get back to the required stamina level, and that is one of the main tasks that the 3-time Grand Slam champion will have when coming back.
"Of course I'm far from being as fit as I want to. I need to work a lot physically and tennis-wise too,” Wawrinka said. “But this happens with tournaments, with matches, but I also am happy to be at that level right now compared to when I started playing again."
"Mainly what I need is practise with the best players, to practise a lot. I only started playing again at the end of the month of February, so I don't have a lot of tennis under my belt. I have to go through this. My level is pretty good in practice, but of course I need to find also my game during matches. The puzzle is a bit complicated. Sometimes you need time before you are able to coordinate all this. "
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