Federer leads tributes to “champ” Wawrinka

He may have wiped Roger Federer off the court in their quarter-final, but there were clearly no hard feelings towards fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka when he went on to take out the French Open.

Federer led a swathe of Twitter tributes to Wawrinka, who’s lived in Federer’s shadow for much of his career, but well and truly stepped out of it on Sunday when he dispatched world No.1 Novak Djokovic.

The 17-time major winner wasn’t at Roland Garros to witness Wawrinka claiming his second grand slam.

He was instead spotted at Switzerland’s St Jakob-Park stadium sneakily catching the action live on his phone as he watched his beloved FC Basel lose the Swiss Cup final to Sion.

“CHAMP,” Federer simply tweeted afterwards, alongside a love heart and party hat emoji and a photo of Wawrinka in celebration mode.

Wawrinka’s coach Magnus Norman was also on Twitter brimming with pride after his charge dedicated his thrilling triumph to the retired Swedish player.

“Thank you @stanwawrinka. You are a champion in many ways!” Norman wrote.

They were two of many who came out to congratulate Wawrinka’s on-court prowess in recovering from a set down, including top female players Victoria Azarenka and world No.1 Serena Williams.

“@stanwawrinka wow! Congrats! Just wow! I wanna play like that!” Williams exclaimed.

“Holly Swiss cow. That was something #bullets,” added retired Croatian former world No.3 Ivan Ljubicic.

Australians Nick Kyrgios, Thanasi Kokkinakis and James Duckworth joined in the online applauds, while Matt Ebden wrote: “Impressive stuff Stanley, bravo!!”

Once he’d recovered, Djokovic himself even heaped praise on the man who roundly beat him.

“Thank u all for believing in me and cheering for me. Congrats @stanwawrinka on an amazing performance! Well deserved.”

Stay up to date with the latest sports news
Follow our social accounts to get exclusive content and all the latest sporting news!