The 41-year-old walked onto No. 1 Court knowing it was the last time.
19 years. One last wild card. One final bow.
Stan Wawrinka wasn't going to make it easy for anyone — not Matteo Berrettini, not the crowd, not himself.
The scoreline tells you everything and nothing:
7-6, 6-7, 7-6, 7-6.
Every single set went to a breaker.
One of them stretched to a ridiculous 34-point marathon in the second.
Stan lost. But he didn't fade. He fought.
And every time that one-handed backhand cracked through the London air, the crowd remembered exactly why they fell for him in the first place.
When it ended, the two men met at the net and embraced.
Then Stan turned to the crowd.
And the crowd stood up. All of them.
He tried to speak. The words got stuck.
👉 "It is never easy to say goodbye to something that you love so much."
👉 "I don't want to retire, but I know it is time for me to stop."
👉 "I couldn't have dreamed of a better goodbye."
Because it's easy to forget in the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era how special this guy was:
He wasn't the GOAT. He was the guy who beat the GOATs on the biggest nights.
The knee surgeries. The comebacks. The ranking drops.
He could've walked away years ago.
But listen to his own reason:
"One of the reasons why I kept playing for so long was to enjoy the moments like tonight."
He stayed for the kids in the stands.
He stayed for the roar.
He stayed for this exact night — even if he didn't know when it would come.
After announcing in December that 2026 would be his last dance, Stan has been squeezing every drop from the lemon.
Australian Open. Roland Garros. Now Wimbledon.
One Slam left. One more chapter at the US Open, where he lifted his final major nine years ago.
Some athletes retire. Stan Wawrinka is taking a farewell tour that feels like a love letter — to the fans, to the game, to himself.
And if Tuesday night was any hint of how he plans to bow out…
the last one is going to break hearts too.
That's all for now!
