Stan Wawrinka, the three-time Grand Slam champion, will retire from tennis next year — making the announcement Friday with an acrostic poem on X.
The poem used the letters from the words “passion” and “dream” which were chosen, he said, to summarize “what this journey (h)as been about.”
🎾ONE LAST PUSH🎾
Every book needs an ending📕
It’s time to write the final chapter of my career as a professional tennis player 📝
2026 will be my last year on tourP perseverance
A ambition
S sacrifice
S success
I injuries
O obsession
N never give upD discipline
R… pic.twitter.com/CJlA8gCN8Y— Stanislas Wawrinka (@stanwawrinka) December 19, 2025
“I still want to push my limits and finish this journey on the best note possible,” Wawrinka wrote Friday.
“I still have dreams in this sport. I’ve enjoyed every part of what tennis has given me, especially the emotions I feel playing in front of you. I’m looking forward to seeing you one more time, all around the world. One last push.”
Wawrinka turned 40 in March and has spent much of the last few years playing on the second-tier Challenger Tour. He has often been asked why he is still playing, and has said he still enjoys competing. Novak Djokovic, who Wawrinka beat in an unforgettable French Open final 10 years ago, paid tribute to Wawrinka’s appetite for the sport earlier this year.
“He’s 40 years old, with God knows how many surgeries on the knees and everything, and he’s still pushing, still coming in, still coming in early in the tournament,” Djokovic said during a news conference in April.
“Showing up, one of the first people that shows up in the club, and practices early, and does everything that he needs to do, even more. So that’s super impressive.
“I really admire him and Andy (Murray) as well for that, you know, going to the Challenger level, trying to build your rankings, trying to get matches. I really admire that. That says a lot about champion spirit and mentality that these guys have.”
Wawrinka was always and remains a hugely talented player, whose picture-book, single-handed backhand won him fans wherever he went. But it wasn’t until linking up with Magnus Norman in 2013, aged 28, that things really started to click. Wawrinka won the following year’s Australian Open, beating three-time defending champion Djokovic in the quarterfinals and then an injury-affected Rafael Nadal in the final.
Wawrinka upset Djokovic at a major again a year later in 2015, ending his run of 28 successive matches won and denying him the career Grand Slam that he so desperately craved, to win the French Open. It was a sensational performance from Wawrinka, one that has been bettered by few players in the decade since. Wawrinka called it the “match of my life” in his on-court interview, and a decade on, he told The Athletic earlier this year that he was sticking with that view.
“If you look at all the things like it being the French Open final, Novak Djokovic, No. 1 in the world, he has won almost 30 matches in a row, and playing the way I played for more than three hours, yes probably.”
Djokovic said in April that “he played some incredible tennis.”
The win was also memorable for Wawrinka’s distinctive red, white and grey plaid shorts that weren’t exactly to everyone’s tastes.
“We still joke around telling that the reason why he played so well is because of the shorts,” Djokovic said of the garments that are now hanging up on a wall in Norman’s house in Stockholm.
Wawrinka beat Djokovic again at the U.S. Open final in 2016 to win his third major, in addition to the Olympic gold medal he had won in doubles with compatriot Roger Federer at the 2008 Beijing Games. It was Federer who coined the nickname “diesel” for Wawrinka, for the way he seemed to get stronger as matches wore on. And it was true of his career too, given the way he started relatively slowly before breaking into the most exclusive of clubs to win three majors in the era of the Big Three and peak Andy Murray.
Wawrinka was especially popular because he managed to achieve all that he did while retaining an everyman charm. He was accessible and authentic on social media, and wasn’t in the same otherworldly physical shape as his rivals. The night before that French Open final against Djokovic he was so nervous that he allowed himself a couple of drinks.
Wawrinka reached that stage again two years later, losing in straight sets to Nadal in 2017, and from there things got tougher. He had knee surgery shortly after and has never been a regular presence at the sharp end of majors since, but did reach three Slam quarterfinals aged 34, across the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
As for his place in the sport, Wawrinka has always been clear that he despite winning as many majors as Murray, the Brit’s far greater consistency is why he was a member of the Big Four in a way that Wawrinka never was. But to have achieved an undeniably Hall of Fame career in the era in which he played in is a phenomenal achievement.
As Djokovic put it in April: “I think he’s very underestimated in the discussions. He’s won a gold medal (at the) Olympics, he’s won three Grand Slams, and, yeah, just an amazing career.”
Still, there is another season to play. As a former champion, Wawrinka will be hoping for a wild card for next month’s Australian Open in Melbourne.