Split decision has helped Stan Wawrinka where commitment has served Marcos Baghdatis

Ahmed Rizvi on the convergent fortunes brought about by divergent matrimonial decisions of Stan Wawrinka and Marcos Baghdatis, who contested the Dubai final on Saturday night.

Stan Wawrinka returns a shot to Marcos Baghdatis during the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final on Saturday night. Marwan Naamani / AFP / February 27, 2016

Marriage can mean so many things to so many people. To Abraham Lincoln, it was “simply purgatory”. For Winston Churchill, persuading his wife to marry him was his “most brilliant achievement”, while in the words of satirist Ambrose Bierce, marriage is a cure for the “temporary insanity” called love.

Few things have divided opinions like marriage does, so it should not really be a surprise that Stan Wawrinka and Marcos Baghdatis, the two Dubai finalists, have such divergent views about the vows.

For Baghdatis, marrying Karolina Sprem, a former world No 17 from Croatia, and starting a family proved to be the “turning point” in his life and career, making him “more organised and more disciplined”.

The affects of that serenity on the personal front are pretty obvious on his tennis as well.

Up against one of the most exciting and explosive shotmakers in the sport, Baghdatis held his own and even managed to turn around the loyalties in the stands during the men's final of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

“Marcos, Marcos” seemed the dominant cry from the stands as the Cypriot, 30, turning back the clock, played like the man of old, the man who reached the final of the 2006 Australian Open.

Wawrinka, however, did not allow that to distract him a bit. The Swiss has refused to allow even marriage to distract him from his day job. He has split with his wife Ilham Vuilloud twice to concentrate on his tennis career.

Read more: Stan Wawrinka the man in Dubai – Swiss holds off battling Marcos Baghdatis for title

The separation, without getting into all the controversy that surrounded his decision, seems to be working well for him. Wawrinka has made six finals since his second split with his wife last April, and he has won each of them. Not a mean achievement in this era of Novak Djokovic’s domination.

His win streak in finals, however, started even earlier, in January, 2014, in Chennai and, with Saturday night’s triumph in Dubai, has grown to nine. It is an amazing achievement, for the run includes a victory over Rafael Nadal in the 2014 Australian Open and the sensational triumph over Djokovic in last year’s French Open final. It also includes a win over Roger Federer (Monte Carlo, 2014) for the only Masters 1000 title of his career.

Those wins, over three of the greatest players ever in tennis history, and this streak in finals should cement Wawrinka’s place among that elite club we call the Big Five. He has earned it. And he has given up a lot for it, including marriage.

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