It’s the second year in a row that the European Open will feature a British player in the final after Kyle Edmund won the title last year – and there’s a nice synergy to the fact that the first ATP final of Murray’s comeback will see him face an old rival like Wawrinka, a man whose struggles have in many ways mirrored Murray’s own over the past two years. Since they played in the semifinals of the French Open in May 2017 – the match in which Murray said his hip problems started – both men have had protracted absences from the tour, undergone surgeries (Wawrinka had multiple knee operations in the latter half of 2017) and undergone painful comeback journeys beset with setbacks.Wawrinka never got as far as an on-court retirement ceremony, but Murray’s fellow three-time Grand Slam champion has had plenty of difficult moments, his ranking dropping as low as world no. 261 last summer; only in the past few months has the former world no. 3 returned to the top 20. Currently ranked world no. 18, Wawrinka made his most recent ATP final in Rotterdam in February, and reached the quarterfinals of the French and US Opens in 2019, but continues to battle for fitness; before this week in Antwerp he hadn’t played since losing to Daniil Medvedev in New York at the beginning of September.Wawrinka though might be peaking at the right time in Antwerp. After three-set battles with Feliciano Lopez and Gilles Simon, he played his best match of the week to thoroughly dominate young Jannik Sinner 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals. Sinner did not offer too much to confound or perplex Wawrinka, who was mainly able to comfortably play his game, and Murray will of course be a much more wily opponent; he leads their head-to-head record 11-8. But Wawrinka looks to have found his best tennis of the week at the right time after shaking the rust off his legs, while Murray might well be on his last ones after playing so much more tennis than he’s been accustomed to in recent years; not since Dubai in February 2017 has he had to play five matches in a single week. I strongly feel that winning the title is going to be a bridge too far for Murray against such quality opposition as Wawrinka, but merely having got this far is a huge achievement as well and there’s no shame in losing to Wawrinka at the best of times.
