It is "to experience such emotions" that he is continuing his career at over 40 years of age. Stan Wawrinka is likely to receive another "STANding Ovation" in the round of 16 match in Basel on Thursday.
22.10.2025, 11:15
22.10.2025, 11:51
SDA
The former world number three will play his 70th match at an ATP tournament in Switzerland against Casper Ruud (ATP 11) or Quentin Halys (ATP 78). The Swiss Indoors 2025 will be his 36th home tournament. His record is positive (37 wins, 32 defeats), but it has never been easy for him in front of a home crowd.
"I've always wanted to play well in front of the Swiss crowd. Sometimes that makes me want to outdo myself, sometimes I want too much," explained the Vaud native on Tuesday after his commanding opening win in two sets against Miomir Kecmanovic (ATP 52), in which he was particularly convincing in the first round. After the match, he spent a lot of time with the crowd in the St. Jakobshalle.
Emotional rollercoaster ride
Whether in the Davis Cup or on the ATP Tour: Stan Wawrinka has experienced all the emotional highs and lows in Switzerland. He has been eliminated in the first round a total of 17 times - nine of them in Basel! - but at the same time he also won two of his 16 titles on home soil: in 2016 and 2017 on clay in Geneva, where he won his last tournament victory at ATP level to date.
He contested his first of 31 ATP finals 20 years ago in Gstaad, where he lost to 2004 French Open winner Gaston Gaudio in the final. It took until his 24th home tournament for Wawrinka to finally triumph in Switzerland in 2016 at the Parc des Eaux-Vives in Geneva.
In Basel, where local hero Roger Federer (10 tournament wins) was always revered, Wawrinka long remained in the shadow of the 20-time Grand Slam winner. Two semi-final appearances (2006 and 2011) were the highest of the highs. And yet he was beaming last Sunday when he spoke about the 2022 edition and the incredible reception from the fans. "The support of the fans this year is the best memory I have of the Swiss Indoors," he said without hesitation.
Buoyed by the crowd, Wawrinka defeated the then world number three Casper Ruud in 2022 to get the tournament off to a perfect start. Two days later, he beat Brandon Nakashima (then ATP 44) before falling to Roberto Bautista Agut (ATP 22) in the quarter-finals. Wawrinka was ranked 194th in the world at the time, just seven months after his return, following a one-year break and two foot operations.
"Not every day is like this"
Since then, the opportunities to wow the Swiss public have become rare. The reason for this: his absence from the last four Geneva Open events, but above all his advancing age and the growing difficulty of maintaining the necessary level over a longer period of time. "I'm rightly ranked 150th, the rankings don't lie," Wawrinka admitted openly on Tuesday evening.
"I've said it many times: the level between 50th and 150th is very close. There are surprises every week," Wawrinka continued. Such as recently with Valentin Vacherot from Monaco, who won the Masters 1000 tournament in Shanghai as number 204 in the world. And Wawrinka himself also showed on Tuesday with his victory against the number 52 that he can still keep up.
"I'm convinced that I can still beat players in the top 50. And I'm happy to have done it here again," he explained. At the same time, he tempered expectations a little after only his third win on the ATP Tour this year: "Not every day goes like this."
Wawrinka had already emphasized on Sunday that at the age of 40, regeneration in particular becomes a challenge. On Tuesday, he also emphasized how important it is for him to have a day to recover - because he knows that he will need all his strength, as well as the support of the crowd, to perhaps land another coup and reach the quarter-finals of an ATP tournament for the first time in 2025.
