Wawrinka and Norman reuniting?

Stan Wawrinka didn’t hide his emotions when longtime coach Magnus Norman decided to leave, for family reasons, last December.

“It was a real surprise for me, a real shock – even more so knowing that I needed to lean on him, as part of my team, at that very moment,” Wawrinka told La Tribune de Genève.

Clearly, he’s not one to hold a grudge.

And, from his Instagram post on Friday, Norman seems to be back in the picture – at least right now – as Wawrinka heads to phase two of his comeback from a pair of knee surgeries.

Wawrinka was in Stockholm Thursday for the opening of a new arena at the Good To Great Tennis Academy. Norman is is a co-founder along with Nicklas Kulti and Mikael Tillström.

A post shared by Stanislas Wawrinka (@stanwawrinka85) on Apr 26, 2018 at 10:24pm PDT

Then, on Friday, this Tweet, the location Le Brassus, Switzerland.

Short-term, or more?

According to French-language Swiss newspaper Le Matin, quoting sources, Norman traveled to Switzerland. The plan is to prepare Wawrinka’s imminent return to the courts, along with day-to-day coach Yannick Fattebert. 

It’s a training block that is to last 10 days, if Wawrinka returns in Madrid. If he postpones his return, it may last a little longer. 

As of Saturday, Wawrinka is still on the Madrid entry list.

Wawrinka said last December that he would look for a second coach to complement Fattebert. But he has played so little. The knee clearly didn’t respond in his early comeback efforts in Australia and on the European indoor circuit.

Wawrinka hasn’t played since mid-February, when he retired during his first-round match in Marseille.

Le Matin said he sounded out a couple of coaching possibilities. But in the end, he turned to Norman once again.

Wawrinka is not the only top player returning from injury to look back to the future. Novak Djokovic was left coachless after the departures of Andre Agassi and Radek Stepanek in short order during the American hard-court swing. And he turned to former coach Marian Vajda – who was gone as part of a wholesale purge of Team Djokovic less than a year ago – as he works to return to the top of the game.

Wawrinka, who is always refreshingly open about what’s going on in his tennis life, surely will weigh in shortly.

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Stephanie Myles

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