Three-times grand slam champion Stan Wawrinka, on his way back after undergoing knee surgery last year, was in upbeat mood despite losing in the Sofia Open semi-finals on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Swiss believes he needs more time to reach full fitness after going down 7-6(6) 6-4 to Bosnia\u2019s Mirza Basic in his fifth competitive match in seven months.<\/p>\n
Wawrinka was knocked out in the second round of the Australian Open last month, losing to unheralded American Tennys Sandgren in three sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been great to win one more match but I need to take the positives from this week,\u201d the 32-year-old told a news conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was positive to have three matches in a row and win two matches. For sure it costs me more energy to win matches, since I am not used to play matches, but that is what I have to do to get back to my level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wawrinka, who dropped to 15th in the world rankings in his absence from the tour, said he did not feel any pain during the tournament in Bulgaria.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy knee\u2019s getting better,\u201d he said. \u201cI am really happy and positive after the surgery, it has been six months until now and everything is going really well. I think I am doing everything possible to get back to what I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wawrinka, however, remains cautious about his prospects of a long run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am moving well, I am playing well, but it is part of a process\u2026 to play more matches, to become more confident,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of things that you have to put together. It is not only about fitness, not only about tennis. It is also about being more relaxed while you play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wawrinka will play next week in Rotterdam where he won his last indoor title in 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow I am travelling and will try to practise there to prepare for my first match and to keep improving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three-times grand slam champion Stan Wawrinka, on his way back after undergoing knee surgery last year, was in upbeat mood despite losing in the Sofia Open semi-finals on Saturday. The Swiss believes he needs more time to reach full fitness after going down 7-6(6) 6-4 to Bosnia\u2019s Mirza Basic in his fifth competitive match in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21638,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21636\/revisions\/21638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}