Stan Wawrinka - where does he fit historically?

[britbox]

Stan Wawrinka played his last match today in Basel going down 5-7 6-7 to Jiri Lehecka.

But where does Stan fit historically? Hopefully @El Dude will chip in with some stats analysis.

Stan has often been grouped with Andy Murray under the "Big 3" but I think Murray is in a tier of his own (of that peer group) above Stan.

Most of Stan's best results came during a four year window (2013–2017). Do we judge him primarily on that peak or the whole career? His majors all came against Big 3 players

To round off, here are a few highlights:

 

[El Dude]

I can probably put something together in the next few days, but will mention one thing. I saw some clip a few years ago in which Stan was asked something along the lines of "As a 3-Slam winner, are you in the same category as Andy Murray?" Stan kind of laughed and said, "No way. Three Slams, but he's got a lot more other titles." I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.

Murray's career is MUCH better. In fact, in the various approaches I've played with, he's more in the Edberg/Becker/Wilander group than the Courier/Vilas/Nastase group - and those guys are solidly above Stan and similar players.

Stan was great in 2014-16, but it was mostly just those three Slam titles and the one Masters. Or we could compare titles:

STAN: 3 Slams, 1 Masters, no other big titles, 3 500s, 9 250s
ANDY: 3 Slams, 14 Masters, 1 ATP Finals, 2 Olympics, 9 500s, 17 250s

I mean, the +13 Masters, +2 Olympics, and +1 ATP Finals says a lot. But he also has +6 500s, +8 250s, and +7 Slam finals.

If you want to look at similar careers, I think players like Pat Rafter, Marat Safin, and Jan Kodes are closer to Stan. All very good players who had flashes of greatness, but way below Andy.

Stan vs. Andy is a good example of why we really need to look beyond Slam count in assessing greatness. Murray may be the player whose greatness is most poorly represented by his Slam count (I'd give an honorable mention to Ivan Lendl).

 

[Kieran]

He Fats historically. Where he fits depends on how how much space is left in the room once he walks in…

I soar blokes like him and Murray are beneficiaries of the total dominance of the big 3, in the sense that statistically you’d expect the big 3 to lose here and there and blokes like Stan and Andy are more competitive than your average Frenchman…