{"id":815220,"date":"2026-07-21T22:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815220\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:00:13","slug":"emotional-wawrinka-bids-farewell-to-clay-in-estoril-tennis-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815220\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional Wawrinka Bids Farewell to Clay in Estoril \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Swiss grew up on the surface and won his first major on it. He celebrated his final match on the red clay on Tuesday in Estoril.<\/p>\n<p>Stan Wawrinka\u2019s greatest moments came on clay, and on Tuesday the legendary Swiss played his final match on the surface. The 41-year-old battled to the brink against Argentina\u2019s Roman Burruchaga before falling 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in two hours and 29 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The 118th-ranked Wawrinka fought valiantly, even saving three match points in the final game before finally bowing out to the 60th-ranked Buenos Aires native.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tennisexpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"610\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pro-Player-Gear2.jpg\" alt=\"tennis express pro player gear\" class=\"wp-image-54540\" style=\"width:730px;height:auto\"  data-\/><\/a>tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlaying against Stan is a pleasure for me. I grew up watching him, so playing against him was a dream come true for me \u2013 all the best for him,\u201d Burruchaga said.<\/p>\n<p>Wawrinka, the 2015 Roland Garros champion, finishes his clay-court career with a 202-124 record. He captured seven titles on the surface and posted a .620 winning percentage\u2014better than his current .608 mark on hard courts.<\/p>\n<p>He also earned 21 Top 10 wins on clay, including two against world No.1s: Novak Djokovic in the 2015 Roland Garros final and Andy Murray in the 2017 Roland Garros semifinals.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"adslot inline-ad\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisexpress.com\/womens-racquets?utm_source=tennisnow&amp;utm_medium=article_ad&amp;utm_campaign=inarticle_racquets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tennis Express<\/p>\n<p>Grass-Court RacquetsThe frames the pros swing<\/p>\n<p>Shop racquets \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Making his first appearance in Estoril since winning the title in 2013, Wawrinka was presented with a framed imprint of his footprint in the Estoril clay\u2014a thoughtful tribute from the tournament. An emotional Wawrinka embraced tournament director Jo\u00e3o Stilwell Zilh\u00e3o after receiving the gift.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI grew up on clay. I grew up practicing on clay, watching clay-court tournaments. It was always special for me,\u201d Wawrinka said.<\/p>\n<p>After the match, Wawrinka stayed to sign autographs for fans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI won the title here in 2013. It was a special title for me, the beginning of my best level, I think,\u201d Wawrinka told the crowd. \u201cI was super happy to have this opportunity to come back one last time. I couldn\u2019t deliver the win today, but I had so much support again. Thank you. I really appreciate all your support.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As he left the court, Wawrinka walked through a tunnel formed by the ball kids, exchanging high-fives with them as the three-time major champion made his final exit.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Oddo. Chris Oddo is a freelance sportswriter, podcaster, blogger and social media marker who is a lead contributor to Tennisnow.com. He also writes for USOpen.org, Rolandgarros.com, BNPParibasOpen.com, TennisTV.com, WTAtennis.com and the official US Open program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Swiss grew up on the surface and won his first major on it. He celebrated his final&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-815220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}