Tennis player Stanislas Wawrinka announced in December 2025 that this would be his final year on tour. “It’s time to write the final chapter of my career,” the Vaud native said. When he was invited to Melbourne in January at the age of nearly 41, “Stan the Man” showed what he was still made of against world number 9, American Taylor Fritz. The “Stanimal” finally lost — in style — in the third round of his last Australian Open, the same competition where, in 2014, he had first eliminated Novak Djokovic, and then Rafaël Nadal in the final.
He has had quite the career since the first time he hit a ball with his elder brother in Saint-Barthélemy (Vaud). Wolfram, their father, ran the farm at a centre for the disabled. Stanislas, who was born in 1985, says that he drew his inner strength from this environment. Four years earlier, about 180 kilometres away, another boy had been born: Roger Federer. “To many people, I’m the Swiss guy who loses,” Wawrinka once told a French newspaper bitterly.
Roger has surpassed Stan at home, but the latter is still extremely popular abroad. He is, after all, the man who beat Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. He won Roland Garros, playing in some very Swiss red-and-white checkered shorts. “I go swimming in them, I play tennis in them and afterwards I sleep with them on,” he joked.
The differences between Wawrinka and Federer have been well documented. The Vaud player frequently earns praise for his approach towards his adversaries. For example, Stan did not celebrate at Roland Garros in 2015 when he beat a Rafaël Nadal in poor form. What will Wawrinka do when he has hung up his racket? Sell shoes? “I still have dreams in this sport,” the Swiss said in his characteristically reserved style.
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