{"id":423527,"date":"2026-01-19T16:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/423527\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T16:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:11:12","slug":"wildcard-wawrinka-electrifies-kia-arena-with-first-ao-win-since-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/423527\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildcard Wawrinka electrifies KIA Arena with first AO win since 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"pf0\">Fans packed every available seat in KIA Arena and willed Wawrinka to victory, 12 years after he broke through for his first Grand Slam title at this very tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pf0\">After dropping the first set, he increasingly tapped into their support, breaking serve once in each of the second and third sets to take them, then recovering from 4-2 down in the fourth to prevail in a tiebreak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pf0\">He smacked 14 aces among 35 total winners, while also benefitting from the 67 unforced errors Djere sprayed throughout the three-hour, 20-minute encounter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pf0\">And the result earned him his first Grand Slam main-draw win since Wimbledon in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pf0\">\n<p class=\"pf0\">\u201cIt was amazing. It was full, a lot of support for me. It&#8217;s always extra energy to receive so much support, especially here. The atmosphere is really special,\u201d Wawrinka commented.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pf0\">\u201cIt helped me a lot and I&#8217;m super happy to get through this one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"pf0\">In Gea, Wawrinka faces an opponent who is flying after winning three matches in qualifying and then extending his winning streak to four by beating Lehecka.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pf0\">The 21-year-old Frenchman has won nine consecutive sets so far at Australian Open 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fans packed every available seat in KIA Arena and willed Wawrinka to victory, 12 years after he broke&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-423527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}