Since the dramatic walkout, the one-time number eight won six of 10 matches to end 2010 and began 2011 this week with a first-round win in Chennai.
“I have seperated from my wife (Ilham Vuilloud). We want our role as parents (of daughter Alexia) to continue. We ask the press, our privacy be respected at this difficult time,” the Wawrinka management said in a statement.
The 25-year-old married former television presenter Ilham in December 2009 and they had a child last February. “Stan returned on September 20 after the Davis Cup in Kazakhstan and told me he had new priorities. He packed his bags and moved into a hotel,” Wawrinka’s wife told tabloid the Blick.
The marital split came only a few months after the player parted with his longtime coach and childhood friend Dimitri Zavialoff, hiring Swiss Peter Lundgren, Roger Federer’s former mentor.
Swiss media reported that Wawrinka felt that he has only five more years to make an impact in tennis and hence cut out family distractions.
“There would have been another solution, if he had spoken to me about,” Ilham told Blick.
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